


A Hero of Our Time

by littlelamblittlelamb



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Achilles is a superhero in the making, Achilles is kinda rough in bed, Achilles isn't as nice when we don't see him through Patroclus's eyes, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, At the start of the fic both Achilles and Patroclus are fifteen, Dom/sub Undertones, Light BDSM, M/M, Restraints
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-03 00:21:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 37,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4079470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelamblittlelamb/pseuds/littlelamblittlelamb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Achilles, born with super strength, speed and senses, is not immortal. Living with his former politician father in a home among his foster brothers, Achilles is going to be a hero of our time. He will do whatever it takes to engrave his name across the face of the planet.</p><p>And then there is Patroclus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Quiet Boy

**Author's Note:**

> For the purpose of this story, Achilles and Patroclus meet a little older than in the book. I've upped it to fifteen, for the sake of my sanity. 
> 
> Superhero au. Done episodically, with many things recontextualised from the book, from Achilles's perspective.
> 
> Enjoy.

He is sitting there quietly with the other children. It is a big initiative that makes my father look good – train foster boys up to join the armed forces or become policemen – and I think that for all its triviality, it is good enough. He wishes for them all to be tough heroes, but will accept them however they turn out. They sit together, mouths full, laughing at this or that.

 _He_ is different from the start.

My abilities, new as they are, do not feel as I thought powers ought to. It has been gradual – a process of ‘unlocking’ them. I train in private, running mostly, but also swimming and jumping and shooting. Until last year, my trainer would list facts and figures and howl at me how ‘mere men can do that’. This year, I have been doing things that men cannot. His silence was an odd thing. I barely noticed when he was dismissed, unable to teach me anymore.

There are a mix of boys here – some have been sent for training, others are here because they are not wanted or cannot be cared for. This big house in the country gives them a certain amount of joy. Father says boys can be raised by fresh air and a hearty meal. The boys do not resent me – perhaps because I am strong, perhaps because they are grateful. They gather round like an audience when we dine, and listen keenly when I speak. It is not unpleasant, but it is not entertaining.

Patroclus – that is the quiet boy – will not join the army or the police force or anything else. I know that already. He killed a boy, and I’m not meant to know that at all. He looks up at me. I smile. 

* * *

“You’re missing drill, you know,” I say. He is hiding in a cupboard. The senses are coming along, and I could hear his breathing. I can hear his heartbeat. “I heard the sergeant growing quite furious. What will you tell him?”

He is humiliated. It takes me a moment to realise that this is so. “Tell him I am ill.”

“Are you ill?” I ask. He looks grim and unwell, but the way he said it speaks otherwise.

“No,” he snaps. “But that is what an excuse is, isn’t it?”

“It is a poor one. Come with me.”

I do not know what I am thinking, but I take him to my next lesson – music. Today is the cello, tomorrow piano. I will take up guitar soon, too. I am gifted, and my father fears I will become a brute, if I am left only to think of my strength. It comforts him that I can pick up an instrument and am forced to grapple with it before I am adequate. It is not so, with fighting. I am getting steadily better. Hand to hand, a man cannot touch me.

Patroclus follows. I realise that he thinks I am taking him to my father after a minute.

“If you’re at my lessons, I can say I wanted company,” I murmur. “Father never minds things like that.”

And that is that. 

* * *

“A sidekick?” Father asks, amused. Patroclus is rooted to the spot, big eyes opened wide.

“Tacky, I know, but why not?” I say. My parents wish me to be a hero, and I would will it so. Heroes are given concessions.

Father raises an eyebrow. “Do you, Patroclus, believe you are the best candidate to be my son’s ‘sidekick’?”

Patroclus breathes – I think it is hard for him, at that moment. “I’ve never thought of it before.”

Father is old, but in his dark suit and with his face marked by decades of smiles and frowns alike, there is something to be frightened of. “What I’m saying, Patroclus, is do you think that is my son was attacked, you would be able to fight by his side? Back him up? Protect him?”

We are fifteen years old, I almost remind him. My abilities are due to speed up in development soon, and should be settled at around nineteen. That is what the doctors say. My mother tells me I am not ready, and I believe her. Every day I grow better, but I shall emerge into the world my best.

“No, Sir. I’m sorry, Sir, I would not have asked it myself.” He is quietly indignant, frustrated that I have put him in this position, and disappointed in his inadequacy.

“He wants to be a nurse, Father, he isn’t like the others. You won’t make a good soldier of him.” Last year, the oldest three of my father’s foster sons graduated. One was selected for a special unit which he is not allowed to say particularly much about, another works in counter terrorism, and the last one took up further studies. They were strong and disciplined. Patroclus is not like them, and I would not wish him to be. I do not need him to be.

“A nurse?” Father asks. Patroclus shoots a look my way – one of pure resentment. He had not told me that. I hear many things that I shouldn’t, and this is one of the few times I have repeated one of them. “Not a doctor?”

Patroclus looks as though he wished the world to crash down around him. “I am not smart enough to become a doctor. I do not want that kind of power. I’m sorry, Sir, I didn’t ask this of your son.”

“We can afford anyone,” I say. If my mother were here, she would hear my heart jump at the thought of him being allowed to fade away and blend in with the other boys – that I couldn’t keep him. “We can afford men to watch my back and family doctors to come rushing in should I ever need them. I want Patroclus by my side. Not just for help, but for counsel and friendship. I wish him as my brother. I want him with me – in lessons and all other things. That is what I’m asking.”

“And if he is useless? If your judgement is wrong?” asks Peleus. There is a hint of pride, there. He does not mind that I challenge him, so long as it is in earnest and with reason. There is little reason to how I want Patroclus – it simply disturbs me that I might lose him. We are hardly friends, but I am so sure that we could be.

“I am not wrong in this, Father.”


	2. A Shy Boy

He is shy. I take him to my room and tell him that he shall stay with me. He nods graciously, unsure of how to speak to me. He is not overwhelmingly handsome – he does not look strong, or striking. I am prettier than him – he is not even like a girl. This boy is not like me. My skin is golden and his is a light chestnut brown, my eyes green and his brown. He is lanky and shy, yet he is not afraid to speak honestly (though he should prefer to not speak at all). He does not lie to me. When he decides he likes me, it will be because I have convinced him aptly to do so; it will not be a result of my imagined charm.

He is not used to people giving him things – I can tell already it is something I will enjoy doing. Perhaps that is wrong of me – will I do it only so that I am the one to make him smile? So that he will be grateful to me? – but I put those thoughts from my head.

I invite him to help me juggle. He looks at me confusedly; we are in my bedroom with a television and gaming consoles, and I ask him to aid my juggling.

“It’s easy, I promise,” I say. I can tell he does not believe me, but he hesitantly agrees all the same.

It is a start.

 

* * *

 

He grows bolder, after a month. He used to wander about, and half the time I would have to close my eyes and listen for his heartbeat in order to find him. In my room, on the roof, up a tree – he would sit quietly, away with thoughts he wouldn’t tell me. I couldn’t make sense of his wandering at first, but then I realised; he thinks it presumptuous to think I would want him always at my side. He thinks he is a bother.

I started telling him ‘follow me, Patroclus’, or ‘meet me there, Patroclus’. You are entitled to my time, Patroclus. He has since taken to initiating conversation with me – much to my pleasure. It is always thoughtful and deliberate.

“Is it true that your mother was one of the scientists affected by the experiment?” he asks one day. We are sitting on the roof – the other boys are not allowed on the roof, and Father stays in his study or goes on trips; it is our place. I have told him so many things already, I suppose it is odd that we have not discussed this. He looks afraid that I will be mad at him for asking. He knows the answer already, but it would be unfair of me to deny him the details of my birth. I know more of him than I ought to.

“She was. Yes, she is immortal. Yes, all the things you have heard are true. All of the scientists within the labs who lived through the ordeal are the same.” I let it sink in. It is like something from a comic, I know.

“Your father – they say he raped her.”

I glance up at him. I suppose it is a good thing that such a thing would upset him. It is perhaps one of the few rumours which are true only in part. “My mother was in a poor condition for a year after the incident. Unlike most of her female colleagues, she was still fertile. She was in a coma – they thought she would die the moment they unhooked her from the machines; remember, this is before they realised they were immortal. At this point it was all superpowers. They impregnated her – IVF. She woke up when there were complications which should have killed both of us. For the rest of the pregnancy, she had to come to terms with being pregnant without asking to be. Not rape as it’s usually defined, but awful in its own right.”

“She visits you, though? She doesn’t resent you?”

It confuses me for a moment. It takes a second for me to remember that Patroclus is here not because his parents are dead or incapable of caring for him, but largely because they do not want him.

“She was furious. They found out about the scientists being immortal weeks before I was born. At first she was frightened I would always be a child. Now she is frightened that I shall die. I will die, Patroclus, if you were wondering.” This seems to upset him. “My immune system is strong, and so am I, but things can kill me. I think being immortal is not necessarily for the best. I inherited her superpowers, though.”

Patroclus grins. “I noticed. The senses.”

I smile. “Senses, strength, speed.”

“Can you read minds?” he asks. He seems earnest, though there is a faint smile playing on his lips.

“No,” I reply. I wish I could. I think there is a lot within Patroclus’s head I would like to hear.

“It’s almost as though you can, though. Your mind and eyes and ears work so fast – you can probably track lies and emotions better than most people. That’s pretty lucky.”

I have not thought of that, but I realise it is true. “Perhaps…”

“What a shame though,” he says, “that you can’t fly or shoot fire from the palms of your hands or go invisible. And think; if only you could turn back time. You would rule the world. Nothing could touch you.”

In the moment, it feels as though there will never be anything to regret.


	3. A Fighting Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patroclus has never seen Achilles fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there. I know it's going kind of slowly, but it's going to pick up soon. Reminder again that in my au, they are fifteen at this stage. Stick around, and drop me a kudos or comment if you'd like - because I'd love.

“Can I see you fight?” Patroclus asks one day. He walks with me, when I ask – and sometimes when I don’t. He follows me like a shadow – I no longer have to look around to know he is with me. His heartbeat is never far away. I feel off balance without it. There are tall, obstructive trees surrounding my house. Privacy, perhaps. Father may wish the press to know of his good deeds, but he does not wish them to see them – or his peculiar mutant son who is not yet ready to debut.

“No one sees me fight,” I explain. I wish they could, sometimes. The boys are allowed to see me race and play sports, but I have never been allowed to fight in front of them. Part of the reason is simply that I am seldom allowed to fight with another human – not even hand to hand.

He frowns. I grin and race to the trunk of the tallest tree. I swing up to the first branch, then shoot through the rest, barely touching the rough bark. When I reach the top, I meet his eyes. They are wide in disbelief. He is about to say something when I jump off. Fifteen metres, is the fall. I hear his breath catch. I have landed before he releases it. His heart is racing.

I like him like this. The people around me are seldom impressed – the scientists who test my health and abilities, my father. On the other hand, I have the foster boys, to whom I am a dream, an ideal – one they would wish to befriend, if not be. Patroclus is something else entirely. There are moments, moments which perhaps please me too much, where he will seem in awe of me – yet it never seems to be because I am a freak. I think we would be friends, even if I was not the way I am.

‘You are impossible,’ he always laughs. When I race him – you win if you finish before I lap you seven times. When I dance. When I tell him conversations happening in another room in whispers.

“You are impossible,” he says, as he always does. He is impressed. “But that is not fighting.”

I laugh. “Who is there to fight?”

“Me.”

I realise that I had been baiting him, then. I can fool myself into forgetting my own malice too easily. Why? Why would I put that in front of him? I am not sure.

“I will not fight you,” I say. Truly without thinking, there had been a laugh in my voice. His face hardens. Internally, I groan at my own carelessness. He mentions his parents, on occasion. How his mother had deteriorated from an illness which left her mind and body weak, and how his father hated weakness – how weak his father made him feel. I hate his father. I am friends with a murderer, and still it is his father I loathe all the more. Patroclus is not foolish; he has the determination to condemn his father’s perception of him. But he is human, and whatever he says, it rattles about in his mind and his chest loud enough for me to hear it at times.

“I could fight you,” he says. He is indignant; I hear the rattling now. He should not be put down, I think – fully grown men cannot fight me. Father has told me that one day there will be men who I will be able to rip in half. It is not time yet.

“No, Patroclus. Do not ask me again.” I say it firmly. This is not fun and games. I do not like to argue with him. The thought of a fuming shadow is an unpleasant one.

“You cannot prevent me from asking again. I will. You will fight me, Achilles.” He does not use my name often, and this time it burns. It is so rare for things to anger me, but I feel the faintest flares licking at my nerves. I turn away to leave. “Are you afraid?”

“I am not afraid,” I laugh, but the sound is wrong to my ears.

“You should be,” he calls.

I hear his footsteps. How easily I could dodge him. He is not subtle or quiet or fast. But I do not dodge; I turn, and let him latch onto me. We topple over. I shove his shoulders into the dirt and he is winded. When he can breathe again, he tries to hit me. I pin his shoulders beneath my knees – too hard, I know too hard – and slam his hands into the dirt. His intake of breath – a gasp, truly a gasp – wakes me.

“Your hands,” I say dumbly. I have made him bleed. His knuckles are shredded and dirty. His shoulders will ache and have bruises for weeks. “They’re bleeding.”

“Let me go!” he says. He is ashamed – I make him ashamed. It is because he places his shame and pride poorly.

“You can’t run off or hit me again,” I say evenly. He struggles, but the scent of blood is growing more pungent. I keep my grip tight.

“You fight like no one else,” he says. There is envy, but not for himself. He has never wanted to be me, like this. He wishes he had parents who love him, perhaps, but that is the extent of his jealousy. It is refreshing.

“You have seen no one,” I murmur, letting him go. Neither of us move.

“That isn’t what I mean.” He turns his head, and I can see his neck. It is a surrender, and I sit up, still over him. “There is no one like you.” He is flushed – I think he feels it too. Above us hangs a question I will not answer, and he will not verbalise. It grows difficult, at times. Sometimes it seems to be racing to dive off my tongue, and I have to halt it in its tracks. I think I could have had him by now, if I wanted to. But if the time is ever to be right, it is not yet. He laughs and closes his eyes a moment, catching his breath. He is taming the question, swallowing it. Finally, “You are impossible.”

He says it so gently and without unkindness. What he wanted of me in attacking me, I cannot say. Yet there is something in this, I think, a sort of curious submission. Perhaps it is what I sought in reacting; my dominance established in a single swoop and then left at that, ringing loudly in memory and never again in action. I cannot say.

“My father will not be impressed that I must patch up my nurse,” I say, grinning. There is effort there, but it becomes natural when Patroclus breaks into an enormous grin of his own.

I think of that day often, and how easily I could have ducked around or dodged Patroclus, and yet I am glad I did not.


	4. The Mortality of Lambs

“I have an idea,” he murmurs. There is a farm not so far away from the house which keeps sheep, and we watch them together as the sun sets. That is the nature of our lives – curious experiments testing my strength contrasted by the beautiful countryside; the utter peace we share. There is something in this – I will lose it, when I am a hero defending cities in the centre of chaos. Father believes I should have this sort of peace – silence but for my breath – before I am drowned by noise and evil and pride. I think, perhaps, he could be right. Whatever I am destined to be, there is this, and I would have it until I cannot anymore. Patroclus, I think, belongs to this. He is a part of the scenery – I have seen him nowhere else, I have been with him nowhere else, he should be nowhere else. I glance at him; his face is unusually bright. “We should have a code.”

“A what?” I ask.

He is silent a moment – he must contemplate again, but there is still light in his eyes. “You truly want to be a superhero, don’t you? Fighting crime and saving the world and all that?”

The idea is not something that excites him, but something he has resigned himself to.

“Yes, it is what I was born to do – I am suited to it.” Finally I would be able to show the world my talents and be met not simply with Patroclus’s awe – which has faded to wariness – but the world’s fascination. He would be encompassed in my glory, of course.

“And you don’t wish to be an Immortal, like you mother?” He has not met any of the ‘Immortals’ as they’re called. Someday I shall show him to my mother.

“Not yet,” I say slowly. “I think there is too much more of the world I need to know before such a decision could be made.”

He nods. That is enough for now.

“And what of me, then?” he asks. Every so often he glances at the sheep. They are going to die, we know – we know what sort of farm this is. It is an odd thing, watching creatures whose fate you know, but you enjoy them all the same. Mother is trying to smuggle me away from the flock, I think; to somehow change my fate. I think that would be terribly lonely. “You told your father I was to be your sidekick. I find that unlikely.”

“You fare okay at shooting, I heard.” When I am learning more subtle martial arts – often just for fun opposed to practicality – Patroclus is taken to the shooting range in the backyard and instructed by one of the senior boys (who qualifies as a marksman, of course). No marksman yet – Patroclus, that is – but not impossible with practice. Patroclus glares at me. He paints himself the pacifist, and does not know that I know what he has done. “You will be an assistant, a nurse for my wounds, my closest confident.”

My girlfriend, it sounds like, but Patroclus makes no comment on that. He only nods. Always nodding, always accepting. I am glad he is mine – I think he is loyal beyond measure, and there are people who do not deserve loyalty such as Patroclus’s.

“Then,” he says, “I think we should have a code.”

I roll my eyes. “Every piece of intelligence we’ll ever deal with will be pre-coded. Or encrypted. Or whatever geeks do to keep information safe.”

He shakes his head. “No, listen to this.”

He closes his mouth and suddenly makes a series of ‘click, click, click’ noises. Like a clock, but the rhythm accelerates and descends as he pleases. It could be a regular tongue click, but his mouth is shut. His face does not move except for the slightest bobbing of his throat, his lips sealed in a smile.

“How do you do that?” I ask immediately.

He grins. “My mother taught me. It’s with the middle of your tongue, not the tip. I can do it underwater, even. I just thought we could make up our own sort of Morse Code – and with your super-hearing, I could send you messages any time, and no one else would know what I was saying.”

We try that out. I write him up a key of rhythms for his clicks and the letter they correspond to and have him hide somewhere, and spell out the location in our special language. ‘B-A-S-E-M-E-N-T’, ‘R-O-O-F’, ‘R-I-V-E-R’. He beams when I find him.

Perhaps I am merely pleased that he has recognised our future together – an active contribution has been given to it – but we lie awake for hours speaking of how we will use our little language – what words we will make a short-hand for, how we could make it into some sort of in-mouth walkie-talkie.

Once, when I found him, I had hugged him tightly without thinking. He had felt good. We two lambs to slaughter frolicking.

That is what I think of as I drift off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give a comment or a kudos!


	5. Innocence in Killing

We have been friends for a year, when he tells me. It is summer – a year since he arrived. I caught a bird, a week before; I am that fast now. I was so quick, so silent that I lunged at a pigeon and caught it as a farmer might catch a lazy chicken. They test me more and more; how long I can hold my breath, how long I can run without becoming fatigued, how far away their little letters can be before I can no longer read them (I am getting rapidly better). Patroclus watches, or will sit quietly reading a book. I do not find his silence unsettling; it is always contemplative and considerate.

But today he finally says it.

“I killed a boy, Achilles. That’s why I’m here.” He does not look at me as he speaks. I am always telling him he is embarrassed too easily. What I mean is that he should not be embarrassed around me. “My father had friends with children, and we were always to play together. They would come over and see the way Father treated me, and do the same. They would take my toys and break my things, and a boy did that – he took a pair of stupid dice from me and we fought and I pushed him over and his head broke on a rock. That’s why I’m here. I thought you should know – I pretend to be better and kinder than I am, but I killed a boy.”

It is odd, I think, that I should have assumed it was something of that nature. No one ever told me how he had done it, yet I had never thought he could have been cold blooded. Not for a second. I am glad I was right.

“Did you say it was in self-defence?” I ask. “When they found you, did you tell them you didn’t mean to?”

I remember him, startled in a cupboard by the fact that I would offer him an excuse to avoid trouble. How far we have come.

He blinks. “I had not thought of that.”

Of course, I think. Of course, of course. “Or you could have lied,” I persist. I ought to be pursuing this – I ought to be making a case for his family to take him back or to make amends or – or something, but I feel the most unpleasant feeling. Possessiveness, I think it is. “You could have said he was dead already. A trip, not a push.”

He thinks at that. It is not surprising, that Patroclus had not thought of this. He is not stupid, but it is not in his character to look at a dead boy and think of his own wellbeing. What would I have done? A corpse is a corpse, and honour is abstract.

“You would not have lied,” he says, finally. I consider that. I would not have killed a boy by accident, I think. I have never made such a mistake.

“No, I would not have lied,” I admit. In earnest, if I did such a thing, it would be done on purpose, and I would not lie about it. If it _had_ been an accident, I think Father would forgive me. I think people would understand. It is unfair that that was not the case for Patroclus, but I cannot resent his being sent to my home. I am glad of it. “No one has ever tried to take anything from me before.”

How petty they would seem – such a person as who would steal from me. I shouldn’t notice the absence of much, and if they were caught, Father would take my side and punish them. I cannot imagine being Patroclus, in a house where his father would let other boys push him around, where Patroclus could be sent far away by his own parents.

For just a moment – fleeting, for the thought is shoved away with such vehemence – I imagine Patroclus being taken away from me. Irreplaceable Patroclus. I am glad when the thought is gone, but I know it will return.

“Not ever?” Patroclus asks. It astounds him, the life I’ve had and will always have. A superhero in the making, a deadly weapon, a celebrity in name (Father won’t let the press see me, but people have made up stories – some of them are true).

“No,” I say. “But I think I would be angry, if that ever happened – if I was treated like that, if someone tried to take something I enjoyed from me.”

Patroclus nods. Perhaps he does not understand yet that he is mine – that I can get him anything he asks, that his honour is entwined with my own. He asks for so little.

“No one would ever dare,” replied Patroclus, a smile on his face. “No one would ever dream of offending the great Achilles – a superhero for our times.”

I laugh at that. He makes a joke about tights and capes and teases me in ways the other boys do not, and I laugh in ways I could not possibly in front of them. I see his rows of teeth contrast against lips parted in glee – his teeth are crooked, and I like that. I had teeth removed and now they’re dead straight with canines that look just a bit too big. His teeth lean against one another in a way I wish I could see more often – I only see them like this when he smiles big and wide. I am glad when my father takes pictures of the two of us, though I roll my eyes when he asks us to say cheese. I have a file always for those pictures.

I would record his laugh too, I think, if I could. If asking would not be a proclamation – no, an offering – of something I’m sure I cannot give.

 


	6. Perhaps a Hero Without Peril is no Hero at All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of fics tackle Achilles as being exactly the way Patroclus tends to see him - sunny, considerate, confident, perfect, perfect, perfect. But I don't think he is, and writing first person Achilles quickly makes it apparent that a sunny, kind stream of consciousness makes little sense. I think Achilles is, in spite of his real, veritable efforts, fundamentally self centred. He is not malicious, but I think there is a certain amount of restraint exercised by him to appear as kind as he is - in TSoA, I found this apparent when he had to pretend not to mind when Patroclus was considering having a child with Briseis. I think Achilles is good mostly because he wants to seem good, and that is interesting.

Mother comes. I am almost sixteen, and she visits early to celebrate my upcoming birthday with me alone. She brings presents – designer clothes, a ring with her family’s insignia (I now have one from her and Father both, two different families. I wear them both), and money for a car. It’s enough money for a small house, I think, not a car. She was wealthy to begin with, but being an Immortal has perks.

She meets Patroclus.

I am not nervous, at first. I speak often of him on the phone, but there is something peculiar in the way she smiles as I guide her by her bony hand that makes my stomach drop.

“Let’s see this new friend of yours,” she murmurs coldly. “Did your father pick him?”

_Did your father pick him?_ A wave of rage seems to slam into me head on.

“No.” There are sons of well-known figures, here, who perhaps Father would like me to befriend, who would guide me in a way he would like. That is what she is afraid of, I think. “Patroclus had nowhere else to go. Father let him stay, but I chose him for my friend.”

She nods slightly. She does not care. She has never minded that I have not had friends in the past, while father would push me towards one boy or another. I have always accepted the boys as ensemble, but not individuals. Patroclus is the first I have truly seen, and I would see more of him, should he let me. She frowns, pursing her red lips. “Which heartbeat is he?”

I listen – though I am always listening, I suppose. I tap it out for her, and she nods again.

“Take me to him.”

 

* * *

 

“Patroclus, this is my mother Thetis. Mother, this is my friend Patroclus.”

I am ashamed. For a moment – a single, terrible, awful moment – I see what she sees. A boy just a little taller than myself – lanky, thin – who doesn’t stand straight. A boy with crooked teeth on a face with acne scars framed carelessly by messy hair. A boy who killed another boy without meaning to – I’d be an idiot to think she doesn’t know that. He is not so vain as I – I know what colours bring out my eyes and hair, I know what sort of clothes display my muscles. He wears plain t-shirts and shorts. I see all that not in Patroclus, but in the boy I see reflected in her eyes.

Patroclus grins at her from the other side of our room and gives her a friendly wave. His heartbeat is not so steady – he can feel her coldness. She knows this, I think. She wants him to feel uneasy.

“He is average,” she says, to both of us. I know how this will go – without ever having had a friend such as Patroclus, I know how this must got. Whatever else she may be, she is my mother. I love her, but there is something of her in me – a cool, icy cruelty which only we understand. I keep it within me, but it is like a language; that I can read it in her means I myself can speak it. “He is not so clever or handsome or important. Why do you have him? He is in love with you.”

He colours. Without him asking, the question sits now in the air. We both hear his heart – that is the sound of it fracturing. I colour too. What she has done will not easily be undone. Patroclus is mortified, and cannot form words.

_‘I’m S-O-R-R-Y. Can I L-E-A-V-E?’_ We both hear his clicks. Mother turns to me, an eyebrow arched. Our minds are faster than mortals’ – hers more than mine – but she cannot unwind our code so easily. We have set patterns for words we use frequently. To Patroclus’s credit, he remembers the words and letters well. He speaks to me with them when I train, and he does not wish to seem disruptive to the trainers. I’ve considered blind folding myself and seeing if he could aid me in fighting like that – tell me where the opponents were, what they were carrying. He rolled his eyes – if I could hear his little clicks from the sidelines, and his breath and heartbeat, then I would be able to hear any attackers’ footsteps, breaths, heartbeats and weapons.

“Mother, we can have afternoon tea. The cooks will make us something.” I take her hand again. We look different, together. She is a cold woman, but side by side there is something odd about us. She looks only a few years older than I, but infinitely more mature. We look like gods – her pale and cold, me gold and warm. Yet neither of us are warm, side by side. Patroclus is so used to having me by his side that this probably looks odd, to him. It looks strange to my father, I know that. I take his colouring, but it is undeniable that I am my mother’s son as well as his. Even now, I am mad at her, but she is my mother. I am able to have both – Patroclus and her – selfishly.

“He is in love with you,” she says. Patroclus’s hand trembles and his breath is too loud. She eyes him. “My son is nearly a god. You are almost nothing. He will outgrow you. There is that.”

She turns gracefully – it is a grace we share – and leaves the room. I lock eyes with him a moment, but don’t speak or click or whisper. I did not defend him, I did not defy her. What sort of a hero lets his friend be trampled on, I wonder? The kind, I think, who knows that their friend will not leave them through all the pain.

 

* * *

 

We are in darkness. We have scarcely spoken since my mother arrived. She left a few hours ago, and Patroclus can only barely meet my eye. I can see in the dark – I’ve never told him that. I can see him when he thinks I cannot. I think he would not be so embarrassed if he knew how I watched him.

_‘I’m S-O-R-R-Y for today.’_ I click. We do not have a word for ‘sorry’, yet we have used it twice today. _‘I T-H-O-U-G-H-T she would L-I-K-E you. She is W-R-O-N-G.’_

He looks at me – where I would be, if he could see. “We can speak. It is faster.” But he does not speak. Not for a long moment. The rope which connects us has been hacked at, but a thread still tethers us together; it will not break. It regenerates even now. Maybe he does not know this, but I have never doubted it. “Not about everything, though. She wasn’t wrong about everything. But you know that.”

I am silent. Mother has plans for me. Soon I will be trained by Chiron, but she did not say when. _Very soon_ , she had said. I want Patroclus with me, when that happens. All afternoon – even before, sometimes, it had entered my mind – I thought of how I would have to play this so that he is with me. To answer his question with my answer could mean losing him, I think.

“I would not embarrass you,” he murmurs. I wish I could read his mind. He says the strangest things. _Not so strange_ , I think. But I would deny ever thinking of it – the damage Patroclus could inflict on my reputation. “I know what is at stake, and I’m not stupid. You’re going to be a hero, and whatever else – I wouldn’t embarrass you, is all. I understand why your mother might be frightened of that, but I would never – it doesn’t matter.”

“You could not embarrass me,” I say, dully.

“No,” he says. “I do not suppose we would be friends if I were the type who would.”

It is not how I wish to leave things, but when he turns over I cannot think of what to say.

 


	7. To Always Have Both

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Achilles leaves Patroclus for Mt Pelion.

“Mother, he will not be left behind,” I say. And yet, there we are, very much in a car driving too fast on a long freeway towards Chiron. Dr Chiron. Professor Chiron. Master of Everything Chiron. Bump after bump over potholes and roadkill she drives us endlessly through mountains and green to a man who will build the world a hero.

She turns to me with her bright red lips and smiles. She is ageless; young and ancient at once. Beautiful like the fury of the ocean from a balcony window – there is nothing human, and everything divine about her. “Your father will not disagree with me in this, Achilles. That boy will not do.”

“It isn’t like that,” I say. It is not a lie – since she left Patroclus has been quieter and a little jumpier. He avoids contact and hesitates. I thought I had drained him of his little hesitations, but they have returned. He does not smile so much either. I try to wring it out of him – I touch him _more_ , I laugh _more_ – but he is hurt and frightened, and there not much to do about that. _I would not embarrass you._ I know he will not. How awful, that I know whatever else happens, he will never embarrass me. “We’re only friends.”

She shrugs. It does not matter now. He is hours away. “Chiron is a master of a number of martial arts – make sure you take advantage of that, whatever your father says.”

Father suggested Chiron because he is a philosopher, a healer, and even a musician. Mother agreed because he can fight.

The car ride is long and full of silences. Mother plays some Baroque music, eventually, to fill the empty airspace – very softly. It is the easiest for us to listen to, with our hearing. My composition capabilities are very good – I can distinguish every tone, every instrument. I could write the very score we listen to down as it plays. Patroclus does not understand it. I can play anything on the piano by ear, almost, and he thinks it’s magic. Normal people can do it too, but I don’t think he has ever seen anyone aside from me _really_ play. He likes me best in those moments, I think. He is always so fascinated – enchanted is the word.

Eventually she stops the car. There is nothing to distinguish the place – all around us is the usual mountains and tall, green trees. I trade one lair for another.

“We’re here,” she murmurs, pulling over to the side of the road. There is no one around – the last car to pass us must have been over half an hour ago. We could have stopped in the middle of the road.

“So secluded that there is no road, no path?” I ask, following her gaze to see only thick forest trailing up Mount Pelion – the home of my famed guru. Chiron lives in isolation and teaches when he is paid enough – and even then, sometimes he will not. He has turned students away before. It is not a rejection of the material world, I have heard, but simply an embrace of nature that makes him live so far away.

“He said to drop you off here. Usually he gives his students a map and asks they find him.” Her mouth is pulled down – she thinks it a weary exercise. I remember the scavenger hunts Father arranged for the boys on weekends sometimes and almost agreed. It is tedious, to us. So many things are. “I told him that you need no map. Can you hear him? It is only faint.”

She turns off the music and I close my eyes. I tune out the sounds of my mother and me and listen. For a long time I hear nothing. I realise, then, that I have searched for Patroclus without realising. I try again and hear the most human sounding heart I can detect in a forest teeming with life. I tap it out on the centre console. Mother nods.

She plants a kiss on my cheek. “I love you, my precious son.” She holds my face in her hands a few seconds, peering into my eyes as though trying to read fate. She does this often.

“I love you too, Mother,” I say. For all she has done and all she will do, I still love her. I kiss her again.

 

* * *

 

I follow the sound of his heart – and other sounds too. A spoon clinking against the rim of a mug, the crackle of his fire place. I feel a sense of exhilaration I have not felt before; this is not an experiment that will be recorded by men who work for my father, but something less planned. I can smell the ash of his fire place and latch onto it, running free and fast.

When I arrive, I am greeted by a modern looking home – though that does not seem the word to describe it. It is something for the minimalist rich and famous. My chest is still rising and falling quickly – though it will settle in a moment – when I knock on Chiron’s door.

“Achilles?” A voice comes from an intercom and I smile through my exhaustion.

“Yes. Who else?” I grin. My first day of being something other than an experiment. It feels extraordinary.

There is a pause. “I’ve had a number of phone calls today. Only, a boy named Patroclus might be on his way.”

I frown. “Patroclus? Patroclus called you?”

“He said he is your friend. If that is not true, I will have his car turned around-”

“No, he is my friend. I just didn’t expect he would be allowed to come here.” What had I expected? That I should train with Chiron a few years and come back to him and whisk him away? Should I not have considered that he might not wait – that he should not, in fact, wait? Or perhaps I forgot myself – and him – for a moment.

“Did you ask if your friend could come?” comes the voice.

“Yes!” I have run up mountains, shocked the forest with my speed, tracked a man with his heartbeat, and he is not impressed. He is wary and unseen, and I feel the need to prove myself in a curious way I’ve not felt before. He doubts my integrity, my loyalty, but I wanted Patroclus – in this I am right. “Yes, I asked Mother, and she wouldn’t-”

“You did not ask me.” My stomach drops. How simple. How stupid. _You did not ask me._ Mother told me I was to go to Chiron’s, I asked both her and Father for Patroclus to be permitted to come, and both had refused – and I had accepted it. What did I tell Patroclus, in my excitement to leave? Poor, awkward Patroclus with his tender, broken crush who barely spoke to me and watched as I packed, giving perfunctory apologies all the while. “I get to decide who stays in my home and who does not. If you are to be what they say you will be, perhaps a refining of your priorities is in order. He will be dropped off where you were. I trust you to bring your friend here in one piece.”

The intercom crackles – the voice is gone.

 

* * *

 

I find Patroclus. He is frightened, but pretends not to be. He is fifty or so metres into the dark woods, somehow having convinced himself that he could find me alone. He is an idiot, but I am the fool. I can sense the relief as he finds me, and the soft undercurrent of disappointment.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it, Pat,” I say, because I cannot imagine what else can be said. It tumbles from my lips as a greeting and I am alight with shame. He ducks his head.

“It’s fine. I just – I’m not stupid, for coming, am I? Is it – was there a hint I didn’t get?” He can’t look at me. Part of him is betrayed, and I know – intrinsically I know, but to put it into words; he is embarrassed to think he has a claim over me.

“I didn’t mean to leave you behind.” He has been left before, I remember. Twice abandoned to my father’s care – once by his father, now by his friend. That he came at all is a miracle; he has not contacted his family once, in all the time since they sent him away.

“You packed,” he says, and there is accusation there. _You packed and I watched and you smiled as you apologised for leaving_. Patroclus is in the habit of leaving thoughts to die on his tongue.

“I have never had to choose between anything, Patroclus,” I murmur as some sort of half explanation. I am glad he cannot see me through the darkness – there is not much of myself to see, tonight.

“Until now.”

“I have always been allowed both – all of the above, never one or the other. I didn’t realise I had made a choice until – until now.” I falter. I flounder. I fail.

He trudges along. I can hear his mind whirring, but he does not wish to argue. “The choice was not to leave me, then? Just to come here.”

He is too accepting – already I know this. He values aspects of me which would best be scorned. He does not realise – or rather, appreciate – the slights I make against him. How often I am unthinking ( _But not uncaring, Achilles, you are not uncaring)_. I know his devotion is more than simple admiration, yet I do nothing. Because I am unsure how Father might mind, what Mother might do, what the world might think. He could be mad at me, and surely he is, and yet _nothing_.

“I’m sorry that I let myself leave without you – I don’t know what I thought would happen-”

“But you might have sent for me?” he asks. We would not have this conversation, if not for the dark. He wears it as a shield, though I am certain he knows how easily I see through it.

What would have happened, had he not found his way? Perhaps I would have found my way to Chiron’s home and forgotten about him. I have never missed anyone. My whole life with Father, an immortal mother. Maybe I would have missed Patroclus. I missed him at Father’s, when he was on chores. I missed him when he fell ill and Father made me eat lunch with the other boys. I had chosen to train as a hero without a thought. I had convinced myself that I had done everything I could and that everything would be fine because I have always, always been fine.

“Yes,” I say. It catches in my throat. I am not sure if it is a lie or not. He, more than any other, exposes my flaws. No one makes feel as pleased, no one makes me feel so ashamed. Without him, I think, these flaws would grow beyond control. He grounds me. He is constant. “I’m glad you came, Patroclus. I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t.”

That, I know, is the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


	8. Above Average, Not Exceptional

We finally meet Chiron. We are given quarters – away from the main house, there is a door in the ground which leads to an underground room with two beds, a bathroom and a television. I think it is like a lair from a comic book. Patroclus thinks it is cold – he is right. There is a chimney which sticks up through the earth and is visible from the surface, and we can have a fire, if we maintain it. He offered us separate rooms – it would take little effort to install a privacy curtain of some sort to divide the room, but I say no, and Patroclus says nothing.

Chiron is a great bull of a man, with a strong imposing frame. Yet he is gentle, for all his stern words and firmness. He assigns us chores almost immediately. They are largely common things – take out the laundry, wash the dishes, feed the animals. I show him no bravado, and I try to put our first meeting from my mind.

“So you, Achilles, are to be a hero?” It is said as a question, and I am not so used to that.

“Yes,” I reply, with confidence. Confidence, not arrogance, I remind myself. “I am suited to it.”

We are standing in a clearing. He set us a course to run. Patroclus is not back yet.

“Your mind is lightning fast. You are suited to a lot of things, Pelides, but you have chosen to emerge a superhero. The world has never had a superhero before. You could be an accountant, if you liked. I think almost any occupation could _suit_ your abilities.”

“With what happened to my mother, we have proof that there is potential for super villains. I think there is room, now, for superheros.”

For that I receive a smile. “That is a good answer.”

Patroclus arrives a moment later, trying to hide how out of breath he is. I had heard him coming, and had run back to the house to fetch him water. He takes is from me, drinks most of it in one go.

“Thank you,” he gasps. He pushes himself too hard, at times. I am frightened he will throw up, for a moment, from exhaustion. I run my hand over his back and scrunch up my nose.

"Sweaty," I say, and he rolls his eyes.

"I'm sorry I'm not a mutant."

Chiron only nods, writing Patroclus’s time on the sheet. “Patroclus, does it surprise you to know that you are above average, but not in the realm of extraordinary?”

He only calls Patroclus by his first name. Sometimes I am Pelides, but Patroclus is never anything else.

“No,” Patroclus replies. “That is not surprising.”

“Is it disappointing?” asks Chiron.

“No. I am not like Achilles, I do not wish to be a hero.” Patroclus finishes the water and wipes his mouth.

“He wants to be a nurse,” I interject. “Patroclus always said he wanted to be a nurse or a paramedic. Didn’t you, Pat?”

He smiles meekly. “That was the plan.”

“Chiron knows medicine, don’t you, Sir?”

Chiron smiles. “Yes, Achilles, I know medicine. Patroclus, why not a doctor?”

Patroclus frowns. “I am not a child, Sir. I am above average, but not extraordinary. I do not wish to be a doctor, my head is not for it.”

Chiron seems to understand something that I do not, for he nods and smiles and sends us away while he plans.

* * *

 

“He does not wish to leave you, Pelides, does that bother you?” asks Chiron, later. He has drawn up lesson plans. Extra physical training for me, extra science for Patroclus. I had approved it, before I hastily added, ‘Obviously you’ll still have to show Patroclus, I wasn’t assuming or anything.’ He only laughed.

“I did want him here. I never meant to leave him behind.” I am frightened I will become a broken record, that he will never quite forgive me, but he shakes his head.

“Not that. I know that.” I relax. “Maybe he could be a doctor. He is right about his abilities, though. His head would have to be in it more than it is to become a doctor, and it would mean leaving you.”

“But you could teach him-”

“Patroclus will gain no credentials from studying with a man in the woods. I can give you skills that you need for what _you_ wish to do. I can give him skills too, but not the piece of paper that will get him work.” Patroclus is out in the garden. It seems odd to keep a garden in the woods, but there are herbs Chiron wishes to have at hand. For the first time, I imagine him in school. It is an odd thought, but once it is in my head, it does not seem wrong. Him in a school uniform, wearing his glasses (he hardly ever wears them as it is, only ever for reading) carrying books, keeping meticulous notes with colour coded diagrams. It hurts, to imagine that.

“I’m not keeping him here against his will,” I say. I am being defensive. I know I am.

“No. That is not what I said, Pelides. I said that your friend does not wish to leave you – you are his career and his occupation. He is sculpting his life around you. Do you mind? Now would be the time to say something.”

“No, I don’t mind,” is what I say. I say it as I say everything – as though I am certain. It is instinctive, and yet there is guilt which hammers away at my brain. I could be ruining his life. When I’m a superhero, is there not a chance that I simply won’t have time for him? Or perhaps I will not wish to make time for him. Are there people better than Patroclus, who I could like better than Patroclus? I have not met so many people. I do not want him to leave, but what I fear most is that there is something within me – burning ambition, icy cruelty – which would see me tire of him and cast him aside; that what we have now is only allowed because we are young and our world is small. “Father will pay him to work with me. It won’t be any trouble. He will be my personal physician.”

Chiron nods. He does not seem mad, though I expect him to be at least a little. “A nurse with just one patient?”

Embarrassment or shame or frustration rushes through me. Maybe all three. “He will be well looked after.”

Chiron shrugs. “As will you be, I suspect.” He scribbles something onto the lesson plan and I have to restrain myself from snatching it away to see what has been written. Chiron and Patroclus – two such good people – make me look the worst. My nobility and charm are lost on them; they seem to value in me something intrinsic that I cannot inflate in the hopes that they might like me better. It is irritating and – nice.

As it turns out, Chiron shows me the page just a second later: _Achilles’ Health_ is now a subject that we will be taking once a week. Inwardly I groan.

“I am not patronising you,” he says with a grin which tells me that he derived some pleasure at my expense. “But you are not human. I shall teach Patroclus of humans, yet it will be useless in healing you. He shall learn specifically of your vitals and the injuries you are likely to sustain.”

Perhaps the worst part is that Patroclus will not mind this bizarre lesson. Already I know he will approve it. Then again, so have I.


	9. To Live in Shadows

I am Chiron’s favourite – I am sure. I am brighter than Patroclus. Often I will re-explain things to him, kneeling close to his ear and demonstrating with my hands. He is _my_ favourite. Patroclus does not partake in the physical exercises Chiron sets for me – does not even attempt them. He helps keep animals and cares for plants and does his homework, and in that he is content.

But there are moments of tenderness between them which I am not privy to, moments I am only included in because I can hear them from another room. More gentle encouragement, queries into his wellbeing, and I cannot distinguish who I am jealous of. Patroclus, for having such attention paid? Or perhaps Chiron, for being able to pay such attention?

We are seventeen when I hear it.

“Patroclus, you understand that this is not a formal education, don’t you?” asks Chiron. He never quite whispers, but his voice is low and soothing. We have had this conversation – Chiron and I – but I had never imagines him initiating it with Patroclus. Perhaps, deep down, I imagine that I must fool Patroclus into staying with me; he cannot know what I take from him. It is the whole world. “Achilles was quite excited when you came – he said you wanted to be a nurse. Do you understand that this is unlikely, without a formal education? Is that still what you want?”

It occurs to me how thoughtless I have been. I have not imagined him in any occupation aside from being my friend for the longest time.

Patroclus is silent a moment. They do not know I listen. I was twenty metres outside the house when I stopped to hear.

“I think he will have need for me. It is better I remain with him,” he says hesitantly. There is a certainty there that I do not understand.

“Does he not have enough, Patroclus? You are human and he is something else. His mind is faster, his physical capabilities impossible. His being here is for himself, to hone that in and grow beyond what anyone could even expect. He left you to be here. It would not be a betrayal for you to leave.”

I imagine him placing a large hand on Patroclus’s still lithe shoulder. I feel rage and anger and jealousy and it is I, I think, who is being betrayed.

“In Achilles, the world is growing a hero,” says Patroclus softly. “He will be a great hero. He has always been smart and he will always be strong. He can save people from burning buildings and hear when someone’s heart is giving out – he is impossible. But he has been lonely.” He pauses and I feel oddly self-conscious. “Above all, a hero is meant to lead, but he needs to practice, I think. His parents would have him trained and tested all by himself and then send him off to fight crime, protect the innocent and defend justice, without ever having led a soul.”

“And you, of course, are to play the part of his devoted?” murmurs Chiron.

“I must seem petty – do you understand?” He flounders a second. There is a moment when I think that this is all a set up by my father – that Patroclus’s friendship was a character building exercise designed by experts to make me more accessible. I have felt invincible for the longest time, yet I know beyond doubt that that would destroy me in a single blow. “Sometimes I think I’m just being selfish, getting to be his friend. I dunno why he chose me – I’m dumber than some of the other boys and I’m not fast and I don’t know what to say all the time, and I killed a boy. For a long time I just felt guilty, like I was deceiving him somehow into being my friend, in spite of everything. I don’t think that entirely anymore because I think he needs someone who’s a bit normal to follow him.” There is silence for a moment, then a nervous, shuddering laugh. “I just sound stupid, don’t I? I’m sorry, Sir.”

I hear him turn to leave, but Chiron’s voice catches him. “You are a seventeen year old boy living in a forest, in the shadow of Achilles – and you think you are being selfish?”

I can imagine the nervous grin on Patroclus’s face. I hear his hand grapple with a doorknob. “I do not feel deprived, Sir. Never think that.”

And he is gone to his room to sit and study and never think of what I have taken from him.

I hear the swish of curtains and look across the clearing to see Chiron looking back at me through the window. I am faint – I am in the distance. Easily I could pretend not to have been paying attention, to have not heard them at all, to have simply been passing by. But he is not so oblivious.

“You hear all that, Achilles?” I hear him mutter. Why do I stay? I fear my guilt has devoured my pride, if just for a moment. “Nod if you did.”

There is a window and twenty metres between us, but I cannot bring myself to disobey him. I nod.

“Good. Achilles, there is no denying your greatness as a hero – and as a student, you are admirable. But please understand the difference between obligation and loyalty – it will be important in your line of work. Patroclus has no obligation to you. He thinks he does, and he does not resent it – and when you feel obligated to someone without it weighing down on you, it is called loyalty.” He is careful to speak firmly, but without anger. I have never felt so powerless. “You are extraordinary, Achilles – but Patroclus is not your inferior. He has not been a teacher long enough to understand that though you must learn what it is to lead, you will lead people who will not always be inferior to you. He is not inferior to you.”

I cannot face Patroclus for the rest of the day. When it is time for bed, and we are mere feet away in our beds, he says, “I did not see you all day.”

“I was busy. Out.” I shrug, though it is too dark for him to see.

He has a habit of exhaling when he smiles. Without opening my eyes, with my back turned to him, I can _hear_ him smile. “Were you running?”

“Yes,” I say. “I’m always running.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always love kudoses and comments. Also, things are about to pick up a touch, I think. Stay keen.


	10. The Same, But Different

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hotting up, as promised.

Patroclus is not a push over. I feel the need to iterate this time after time. He is determined in some things – I knew this from the way he scowled at me from the cupboard I found him in. There is a will to survive and fight for what he desires – what it is may be little, but then the image of him waiting miles away from Chiron’s house, at the edge of a forest, runs through my mind. He is not weak and he is not naïve. Let that never be said.

He is different to me. I remember liking him because he was so different to the boys who sought my attention by showing off, but that is not totally true. Some of the boys were good and kind - there were some to whom I looked up to for their leadership and dedication. No, I liked Patroclus then - and now still - because he is different to me. And what of that? How strange it would be, had I chosen another companion. So strange, I think, that I cannot imagine what it would look like or how it would feel if the space occupied by Patroclus was to suddenly be filled by another.

There is something rotten in me, I think. I enjoy contact with him and I always invite him to take more, knowing how he feels for me. Touches do not come so naturally to him, and they do to me and I should set boundaries and appreciate his mourning over the poor limp body of his crush that breathes strained, small, shuddering breaths – but I don’t. I smile and reach for his arm, snatch at his hand and lead him about, ruffle his hair and fiddle with his toes when they find their way onto my lap. Sometimes he will give me a guilty look as I do it, as though apologising for enjoying my touch. It isn't that I want him to feel guilty, but I cannot bring myself to stop it.

All this, and I give him nothing. It is something I ponder at night when I do not have to share with him my thoughts. During the day, I am allowed to pretend I do not understand my own wrong doings, but alone in my head they break the surface. I never make promises to stop. I know I won’t. It is too easy to throw myself into the rhythm we share; it is a dance we have done for so long.

There is a small waterfall near our dwellings which has a basin below it and a connecting stream. It is quickly one of our favourite places. We climb on the rocks which rear their heads above the surface and wade in the shallows, all the while hearing the continuous splashing of water. We swim there too, when it is warm enough. The sun will lick out our skin till it burns - but never too much, for we are shaded by trees. It is an oasis, a paradise.

One day - just an ordinary day - we go for a swim and, without a word, I take all of my clothes off. Without a thought – only that is a lie. I do nothing without thought. There is an intimacy in this. There is a part of my mind – the part that flashes my charming smile at Patroclus – which repeats over and over that we are unaffected by the modesties of culture, that we have been reared without such silly habits. It is easy to say, and it could be true – how easily it could be true – but it is not, because both our hearts speed up just a little. I am glad he cannot hear mine.

I am naked in the water in summer. There is light streaming down casting shimmering, dancing shadows onto the water and Patroclus stands still for a moment, his big eyes uncertain and curious and scared and determined. For a moment, neither of us move. _I have changed everything and nothing_ , I think. I feel powerful.

I look away, aware of his gaze on me. I move so he can see more – teasing, but he would never venture to say so, I am so sly. I lock eyes with him and he doesn’t look away from me as he begins taking his own clothes off.

The mood changes for a fluttering series of moments. He is methodical – not angry or reluctant or excited by our joyous rebellion, but accepting of it. He does not look away from me, and he does not show shame. He is not confident – still his heart is too fast, still his breathing too deep – but courage is not innate; rather, it is that which propels us through our limitations.

I stare. I don’t know where his eyes go, because it is not at his eyes that I look. He is changed, a little. We have only been on Mt Pelion a few months, it is not that – but I have not previously registered that he is not the same boy I met in that cupboard. It is still the body I know. We have swum together before. I have seen before his peculiar blotches of scar tissue along his side from where his mother had spilt scorching tea on him as a toddler. It is everything else that has changed. He is taller, broader. His body is lean, but there is muscle and I am struck by thoughts which have left me unmarred before he unleashed them. He is taller than me, and quite strong, but with a delicateness. I could manoeuvre him, I could hold him, bruise him with my strength and desire and he is not a girl. Delicate and fine, but not soft or curved or tender and I look at his hips and his groin and he is not a girl and I am glad because I want what I see before me, I feel a stirring in my body –

I look away and he slips into the water. He grins at me, and I have no idea what he is thinking.

“ _Achilles’ Health_.” He smiles. We have had a number of sessions, mainly going through the ways in which I am mortal, pouring over the statistics collected by the researchers at Phthia and formulating ways to measure how much of regular medicines and drugs I would have to ingest to have the desired effect. A few days ago he listened to my heart at various levels of exertion. It starts out slow and strong and can get higher than a regular human without failing. “You would know everything, though, wouldn’t you? I have these imaginings of you gushing out blood on the pavement and I am trying to check your vitals – I am the only one on the scene who knows about _Achilles’ Health_ – and there you are rasping out your heart rate, rate of healing and estimated loss of blood. You knew when I caught a cold last winter. You heard the change in my breaths and noticed the sniffles before I did.”

I force a smile. His body is near me and I can’t bring myself to touch it, as I normally would. I choke a laugh. “Yeah, Pat. I guess I don’t need you at all.” I exaggerate my smile and roll my eyes so he knows for sure I am joking.

“But if I weren’t there, you would lie about your injuries and do whatever you wanted, even if you were half dead. You think you’re immortal.” He shrugs. “Close, but no cigar.”

“Keep me honest, Pat,” I say.

“Alive,” he says. “I will keep you alive.”

His eyes are so serious and they seem to throw not accusations, but the confessions I silently force him to bottle up. It is sincerest love and it makes me feel sick – not the sort of sick Mother would prefer, but nervous and anxious and _excited._ He has never confronted me directly with his affections, and I think that he protects not just himself, but me too. His sitting beside me naked is his declaring a draw in my stupid game of losers. What had I thought in taking off my clothes? But Patroclus had reacted calmly and rationally and in such a way that we wound up in a truce rather than his victory. Patroclus is too good to me, but he is not a push over.

We swim and play and talk of nothing; we pretend that nothing has changed, but it has and I want him. I have loved him – no, that is not the word. Needed him; for company and friendship such that I knew it was beyond friendship. But now I _want_ him.

That night I close my eyes and think of his lean, muscular shoulders and the way he worries his pink lips between his teeth and what it would feel like to see marks of my making painting his body and what it had felt like when he put his head to my chest to hear my breath and heart in class – his hair had tickled my collarbone and the sounds of our hearts ticking like clocks and our breaths mingling together amplified in my head, like we were a symphony of respiration for only my ears –

I open my eyes. Suddenly what I have long abandoned to Patroclus is a mutual problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Always love them comments and kudos.


	11. If a Boy Should Fall in a Forest

I am growing cocky. I have been with Chiron for almost two years, and my improvement has made me arrogant. I feel no limit in what my body can do – all but fly, I am sure. Of course, it is more than that which makes me so. I think of Patroclus too often – I think of his body, the sounds he would make, the pleasure I would give him if I could bring myself to utter a word of my desires. I’m sure I have snapped at the real Patroclus for interrupting the fantasies I share with the fake, wanton Patroclus in my head. The worst of it is that the real Patroclus shares my desires, but I cannot tell him we have them in common.

Mother calls often, and has visited twice. The first time, I had met her on the road she had dropped me off on, and she had taken me on a long drive. We spoke of everything but Patroclus. The second time, she found the house and surprised Patroclus. I pretend not to have heard what she said to him. He never mentions it.

It is the morning, and I eat breakfast in the main house – there is a small fridge in our quarters, but usually we eat our meals with Chiron. He has fresh fruits and jams and the bread we bake together and smoothies – all we could want. Patroclus had woken early to practice shooting – it is a skill he has not given up, and I am glad. Usually I wake early too – I will go for a long run before breakfast. But it is cold, now, and my temper frequently flares. I try not to show it, but I know they see. It is Chiron, I think, that does it. I can admire him as my teacher, and adore Patroclus as my friend – but only individually. When I am with them both, I feel off centre. They demand of me two different men who cannot be reconciled; Chiron asks for a dutiful, disciplined warrior and philosopher, and Patroclus asks for nothing but my most relaxed, easy self. So I spend that morning alone – I am glad that Patroclus left early; I was able to close my eyes and take pleasure in the Patroclus in my head who demanded nothing but my touch.

They have just returned and I sit at the table. Patroclus looks pleased. I pat the seat next to me, but he does not sit.

“Achilles, you have been wishing for something more challenging lately, have you not?” asks Chiron. I have pestered him with suggestions to up my training – perhaps hoping he would tell me that there is no point, that I am perfect.

I nod across the table. Chiron has his hand on Patroclus’s shoulder, and Patroclus is looking a little embarrassed. I feel my eyes narrow before I stop myself and smile. My face smiles easily – Patroclus told me that once. He’s right, I think. Resting, Patroclus looks deep in thought and I look pleased. His smiles are small and awkwardly shaped and he tries to hide them from me, sometimes.

“Patroclus has just qualified as a sharpshooter, Achilles.” Patroclus looks up at me, grinning a little before he purses his lips to stifle it. I knew Chiron had been training him with firearms. I had qualified when I was twelve, I think.

“Good job, Pat,” I say between mouthfuls of cereal. The smile comes back, and this time he doesn’t banish it. He wants to be harmless – I suppose he only barely realises he is being moulded into a killer like me.

“And, I thought this could be a learning exercise for you, Achilles. Meet me and Patroclus on the track, about two hundred metres in. Don’t dress to impress,” he adds with a chuckle. Patroclus just shrugs, silently proud of himself, taking an apple and a handful of strawberries, following after Chiron.

 

* * *

 

When I find them, it is in a clearing. Sometimes when I am doing laps of the forest, I will stop here to stretch. Patroclus is holding what looks like a pistol.

“I hope you’re not gonna use that on me,” I call.

He laughs. “I am, actually.”

Chiron runs down to meet me. “Today is a lesson of speed, agility and restraint. I have given Patroclus a gun filled with paint pellets. He is going to attempt to shoot you. If you get shot, you have to start again. Your aim is to disarm him.”

I nod. It is not often that I get to train like this, and I am excited. We are one hundred metres apart when Chiron blows his whistle. I am eighty metres away when I am hit with a green pellet and I run back to the starting line, laughing.

I make it further, the next time, and the next and the next, but Patroclus hits me each time. Once I could not have been more than ten metres away, and I was hit in the chest with red. It hurt my chest, it hurt my pride.

I don’t know when I stopped laughing after each time he hit me, but I feel anger seeping through my body. I take a moment to focus, even after Chiron has blown the whistle. I close my eyes, knowing that Patroclus will not be able to hit me until I run closer. I imagine it – disarming him – I picture it in my head, and them I am running.

The first shot misses, and so does the second. I hear him, I am in synch as he lines up each shot, changing direction before the pellet can find me. I am gaining on him, closer and closer, and I don’t know why he smiles at me now. I leap at him from a few feet away and knock him to the ground. With my legs I pin him down, and I snatch the gun from his hands. I smile and sigh, content. And then I hear it.

His breath is shallow and shuddering, and his face is pinched in agony. I drop his gun and immediately move away from him. Chiron is by his side in a moment. He does not look at me.

“Patroclus, where does it hurt?” he asks in a low voice. It isn’t clicking in my head what I’ve done.

He’s gasping and choking. “Ribs – and arm. I can’t move it, it hurts, Sir.”

“Did I hurt you?” I ask dumbly. How hard had I pushed him? Where had I kneed him as I took his gun?

“You didn’t mean to…” There are tears sliding down his face and he covers his mouth drawn in agony just as he covers his smiles and I feel a jolt of panic and guilt and shame.

“Chiron, what did I do? What do I do? I didn’t mean to – fuck, I didn’t mean to.” I sit down by his side and hold his head in my hands. Chiron is doing something constructive, and all I can think to do is stroke his hair. “I’m sorry, Pat, I didn’t realise – fuck, Pat, I’m sorry.”

“Broken arm and a few broken ribs, maybe. The arm’s the trouble,” murmurs Chiron. He looks at me for the first time. “Achilles, can you carry Patroclus back to the house?”

I nod quickly, lifting him easily in my arms. He groans in my ear, and I think I might throw up. I have hurt him. He is all I have – but that isn’t true. I have a mother and a father. I am all he has, and I have done this.

 

* * *

 

“Is he okay?” I ask. Chiron had taken Patroclus into the spare room – not our room – and had looked over him. I had not been invited in.

“I’ve given him something for the pain.” He runs his hand through his dark hair and exhales. It occurs to me the he too feels on edge over Patroclus. “It’s his arm that’s the main thing – ribs aren’t too tricky. He might have a concussion, though, so I’ll have to watch him.”

“I can watch him,” I mumble. I am inches taller than Chiron, but I feel impossibly small. Patroclus has the opposite effect. “Is he very angry with me?”

Chiron snorts. “ _Don’t be mad at Achilles, he didn’t mean it_. Did you really expect him to be angry with you, Pelides?”

“I want him to be.” My jaw clenches.

Chiron sighs and the tension in his body dissipates. “Patroclus told me about when he fought you when you were fifteen, and you ground his knuckles into the ground with your knees till they bled. He showed me his hands – bore them like an affectionate cat owner shows off scratches from their darlings. The scars are still there, and I don’t think they will disappear.”

“Do you think I have forgotten?” I bite back.

“I hoped you would remember, Pelides. Because when I asked you to disarm Patroclus, I hoped you would work hard until you could do it without causing damage. You were learning each time, making more and more ground, but you grew frustrated and used brute force. Strength is your friend, but so is Patroclus.”

“You used him to-”

“You are not a weapon, Achilles,” he interrupts. “People will think of you as one, but know you are not. Your aim is not for the throat, your actions are determined by you alone. I asked you to disarm your friend as a training exercise. Your mortal friend who fired paint pellets at you as a game. Was he the enemy?”

I feel sick. “No,” I whisper.

“No, he was not. You may come up against people like Patroclus-”

“That isn’t the same. They _will_ be the enemy.”

He shakes his head. There is a point here that I am missing. “Patroclus is important to you. You will face people who are important to others; sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, lovers, mothers, fathers, friends. If we measure a person’s worth like that, Patroclus has very little, and your enemies might have twice as much.”

I almost explode. “Patroclus is-”

“Patroclus is nobody’s child, nobody’s brother. He lives with you in the woods because he has no one who thinks he should amount to anything more.” There is an undercurrent in Chiron’s tone such that I could drown.

“I will look after him.” It is a promise.

“We shouldn’t discuss this. Patroclus chose to come and I let him – we cannot hope to see his fate. But yours is laid out before you because you have willed it so. Mercy is to be prized. Your enemies are not always bad people. Show them mercy where you can. All your life you have built up strength with which to fight – and it is easy for you, I know. But know that restraint is what saves lives, even if it takes more effort. You need to see where the choices are, Pelides, even when others do not. Today, had you exercised restraint, Patroclus might not have broken bones. In a few years, it will be up to you to see where lives can be spared. Remember how it feels to hurt Patroclus – then imagine if he were killed by another, just for fighting for you.”

Tears are stinging in my eyes and I feel the first fall. My throat is raw and I am mad and I am upset and I am ashamed. “And you would use Patroclus to teach me this?”

At this, Chiron frowns. “Do you think Patroclus did not know what I asked?”

I don’t know why that does it – reduces me to a child. Less than a child – I had never had reason to cry when I was young. The tears fall faster and I don’t know for what. That I have hurt Patroclus? That Patroclus would let himself be harmed just to teach me? I lean against the wall and cover my mouth, willing the storm to pass.

“Achilles?” His voice is small from down the hall. There is a short pause, then, “Sir, is Achilles around?”

Chiron’s eyes fall upon mine. Slowly, I shake my head; he cannot see me this way.

“No, Patroclus. I’m afraid we left the pistol in the clearing. I sent him to get it.”

“Oh. Poor Achilles. I hope he’s okay.”

“You just tell him when he gets back then.”

 

* * *

 

Chiron does not ask me why it took so long to retrieve the pistol, and he does not ask me how far I had to run until the ache in my body numbed the feeling of the world crashing down upon me when I return. I am a mess of sweat and I hear my pulse pound against my skin like a madman against a padded cell.

“He’s waiting for you.” Chiron gestures down the hall. “He won’t know what to think if you don’t visit, you know.”

I nod and place the pistol on the table. “Do not use him as a lesson again. What you teach is important, Sir, but I cannot…” I hesitate. I have grown accustomed to lying through actions, but it is not in my nature to lie in words. “He is important to me. My friendship with him is important. I can have anything I like, but I choose little and I choose him.”

I think he will say nothing as I cross to walk toward the spare room when he murmurs, “And you think it is I who might gift him, or take him away from you?”

I smile up at him. I am exhausted, and cannot play games with words – but if he wishes it, I will muster just one round. “I think that when I was born, my heart was placed in Patroclus’s chest so that he might guard his and mine at once. A man ought to have a heart in his chest, but I do not, so Patroclus must always be with me so that I might hear it beat and know that though it is not in me, it does exist.”

“Achilles.” I am almost at his door, summoning a smile, but I obediently halt at the sound of his voice. “I think that it is a dangerous way of thinking.”

I hear him. I would have heard him from a half mile away. Something in me hardens, and then resolves and I lead myself through the door and close it behind me as though it traps the words in another world. In this world is Patroclus and me, and that is all there need be.

“You’re back.”

“I’m sorry, Patroclus.” The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop myself. It’s inadequate. I am trapped by words.

“I think Chiron knew you would get frustrated.” He says that as if to excuse me. “And I know how strong you are. And I know that you didn’t mean it.”

“I have no excuse. I’m sorry, Patroclus.”

“When I was fifteen, I pushed a boy and he died,” he says, slowly. His eyes are shut. “If I had taken a moment to look around – to see where his head would fall, or even reconsider pushing him at all – he would be alive right now.”

And you, Patroclus, would never have met me.

“You weren’t to have known-”

“No, Achilles.” His eyes open. He is not angry, but firm. “No, I was not to know, but I might have checked. I might have looked, I might have considered, I might have thought.” He turns his eyes to the ceiling. “So I’m not mad at you, because I killed a boy, and I know what it is to spill blood when you only meant a push or shove or to disarm. That’s it. That’s all there is.”

And it is. In a strange way, in an awful way, that is all there is. There should be more. My mother and father should know and reprimand me. My mother never finds out and though Chiron informs my father, all he has to say of the incident is that it is a ‘shame that Patroclus got injured’. As though it were fate or the universe meddling rather than a boy losing his temper. Patroclus’s parents never learn of it either – we keep nothing but one great secret from each other, and the memories of he relates to of his parents me are never more recent than his father putting his suitcase in the trunk of the taxi.

His injuries heal in their own time – it is not long. And though there should be more in this – fraught tension between Patroclus and I – there is no lasting reminder but in his bones and in my mind.


	12. Flesh for Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day it gets too much...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, rating change. Note that.

The day it gets too much, I am rattling at the gate – chomping at the bit. Sick to my stomach but pumped full of anger and fear and desire.

“You do not talk to my mother?” I ask Chiron. I am eighteen. Patroclus’s cast is off and I am a man now and I am eighteen. I am recently eighteen. I can outrun any man – not a bullet, but I could pin the man down with a feather like touch before he could fire, I am so much improved. Chiron has taught me meditation, and from that we have developed listening exercises. I can hear things no other can hear, I can see like no one else. I process information lightning fast – and my body. I can make my body dance as well as professionals, make it glide through the air. All this and I speak of my mother.

He has noticed. Long ago, he noticed. “She asks about you – the both of you, when she calls me for updates about your progress, and I tell her only what she needs to know. About your progress and nothing else.”

I nod and take a breath. “She said something like that. She asked me about Patroclus yesterday – and it occurred to me that if she had to ask me, then your reports weren’t as insightful as I thought. I couldn’t sleep from thinking of it.” The past months have been a spell. They have been filled with lies that threaten still to tear free of my body and rise again as truth. I feel sure that I will never again feel half as wretched as I have these months. I nod again, to myself only, and turn to leave.

“Achilles.” I stop. That is his effect, begging me always to stop, even if just a moment, to think. Almost always, he is right. But in this, I suffer only from thinking too hard and for too long. “Is it Patroclus, or could it be anyone? You do not have so long to wait, if it is just anyone. You’re almost done here.”

Could it be just anyone? Not girls – I know it could not be girls. I have seen men more beautiful than Patroclus. All sorts of men – some who look lithe and delicate, others who look, for all their muscles, stronger than me. I have seen some, in pictures and in television, who remind me somewhat of Patroclus – yet I find myself not desiring them. When I close my eyes, it is him and only him projected onto my eyelids.

“It’s Patroclus.”

* * *

I have never been so nervous. He is in his bed while I flit about, reading over some book or other and occasionally glancing up at me in confusion. My heart hammers and I am aware of every inch of my body – after all, it is about to turn to jelly. I have made a million plans. Some are passionate confessions, others have no words at all. I have thought to simply join him in his bed and look up through the sky roof into the stars and caress him so gradually that he follows my lead and we entwine without the clutter of words our bodies cannot say.

But he is owed more than that.

“How do you handle it, Patroclus?” I ask. My voice is tight, and he looks at me like I have grown a second head. I feel I am being strangled, and he is not used to seeing me mastered by fear. “About what my mother said when I was turning sixteen – how do you handle it?”

He is silent a while. Then, “The way I feel – it isn’t just… Achilles, don’t laugh at me-”

“I wouldn’t.” I wasn’t. I would never.

“The way I feel isn’t limited to – to that kind of love. That your mother was talking about. I want – I don’t really want to talk about – Achilles you can’t expect…” He cuts himself off and looks into the stars and away from me. “Whatever I want, not getting it doesn’t mean that I don’t still care about you. If I cannot have it, I am content with friendship.”

“You don’t – you don’t hope for more?”

At this he sits up and looks me in the eye. More than embarrassed, he is furious. “Is it not enough, Achilles? Is it not enough that I do not mention it?”

My mouth falls ajar and I struggle for words. “Patroclus, I didn’t mean-”

He lets out a shuddering breath and the fire in his eyes fades. “No, I’m sorry. I know you didn’t. I’m mad because you mentioned. It can’t be unsaid. It will hang over us, now.” He turns over, as though resigned. I have spoiled the façade.

“It has been hanging over us for years, Patroclus.” I walk over to him. I want to touch him. “Chiron tells Mother nothing.” He does not look up, though I stand over his resting form. I squat down and take a breath. “I thought you might like to know, that Chiron would not say anything, if I were to…”

He is looking at me and words suddenly seem in short supply. My hand finds anchor in his shoulder and I do not know what the expression is that crosses my face before I plunge – I think it is that of a man drowning breaking the surface only to be dragged down, over and over.

I kiss him clumsily. I kiss him carefully. I kiss him till we are out of breath and the sound of our gasps is the only sound in the world. My hand caresses his jaw and my mouth finds his neck, but he pulls away, stilling me.

“Since when?” he breathes.

“I don’t know.” He understands, I think. I am not brushing off the question. Since when have I loved Patroclus? As my friend and brother, surely he felt my love. When I conceived of this… “In the stream, when I saw you.”

“Naked?” he laughs.

“I wanted you,” I murmur. His skin is beneath mine – somewhere beneath his pyjamas is flesh for me. “I had not wanted you like that before, and then I saw you. I had adored you and teased you without knowing what I teased for, and it is this. I could not think of what could be gained from our affections, but it is this.”

“You want… me?” He frowns. I think to bring him a mirror, so I might show him all I love.

“Yes.” I run my fingers through his hair and he closes his eyes. “Yes, Patroclus.”

The question has been asked, and finally an answer has crawled free from my throat.

He smiles nervously and begins to unbutton his shirt, but I pull it over his head in an instant. He is beneath me. His tan chest is strong. I first run my fingers over the burn on his side, and then my lips. His breaths are long and strained – he has ached for this, for so long he has ached for this. I find his lips again and kiss him over and over. I take to his neck and nip and suck. I want him to have marks from me.

I trail down, and without a thought, I bite down hard on his chest. I come to immediately, and flick my eyes up to Patroclus’s face – though what I ask for I’m not sure. Forgiveness, or permission? His mouth is slightly agape, and when he realises I am looking at him, he nods. Permission, then. I nip – more lightly, and only for a second each time. I find his lips with my mouth and his cock with my hand and he gasps into my mouth.

I focus my mouth again on his neck while I stroke him. He is trembling – and I am surprised to realise that I am too. I am rarely out of breath, but he has made me so.

“Achilles,” he moans. What that does to me, I cannot explain. He places his hand over his mouth, embarrassed.

“Who else can hear?” I ask.

“You, only you, but-”

“Then do not deprive me.” I want to make him scream with pleasure, one day. But this night is tender.

“Do not stop, Achilles.”

I don’t. He pulls me impossibly close, and I feel him climax against me. His eyes are closed and he breathes deeply. His heart is exploding and he smells of sex. Timidly, he opens his big eyes and smiles, worrying his bottom lip. He squirms a little and I take the hint, lying down in his place as he straddles my hips. He plays with my waistband a while, before sliding his hand up and down me. I have been hard a long time – it will not take much.

I feel his other hand reach lower, and he strokes the inside of my thigh. I am going to die, and I will not mind at all. I am meant to be invincible, but how am I meant to survive this? I feel him move lower, and I do not fully conceive of what he is doing until he has taken me in his mouth, his hand moving still at the base.

Instinctively I spread my legs and tilt myself up to lean on my elbows to watch him. My hips buck once, twice, and he makes a small choking noise and I will die, I am sure he will kill me. He looks at me while his mouth moves around me. I feel the pleasure building, tying knots in my body. I realise too late.

“Patroclus-”

He moves away, but some of it marks his face. He lazily wipes his face with the back of his hand.

“Fuck, Pat…” His head lands on the pillow beside mine and his eyes are on the stars again.

“That was okay, wasn’t it?” he asks, voice low.

I laugh too hard, at that. His brow scrunches and I feel bad for worrying him. “Okay? Patroclus – I – it – really good. Better than good. Better than words.” Yet to look at me, I take his chin and turn his head toward me. “Better than stars. I didn’t think-”

“What?” he asks. I wish he would not worry.

I had been about to say ‘I did not think I would ever stop being afraid’.

“I did not think that we would…” The words keep slipping away.

“I was frightened too,” is what he says.

“But you wanted to? You do not regret it?” My voice is shaky. We are a mess – sticky and sweaty. There is a drop of my come on his face still.

“For a long time, Achilles.”

“Me too.” I press my lips to his ear. “Say that you’re mine, Patroclus.” I trail my hand over his side. “I won’t be able to believe it otherwise.”

He laughs, and can’t look at me as he mumbles, “It’s embarrassing how long I’ve been...” _How long I’ve been yours._

I kiss him long and hard. I think his lips will be bruised, but he laughs when I draw back. “And I am yours, Patroclus.”

And in my head, Chiron evaporates and the woods are ours and there is no one in the world and I needn’t worry for anything, it is just Patroclus and me here forever and no one can ruin it and we grow old beneath the stars as the heavens are our only audience. In my head, in that night, the story ends there.

But that is not our story, and it goes on long after we might like to close the book.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love it when you comment and kudos ;)


	13. Juggling Fates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s so nervous. We touch each other’s dicks one night and now I feel him slip through my fingers – but it is not that. He is trying to contort himself to fit into the picture of my life so that he does not have to leave it altogether. He is trying to make himself impossibly small so that he might not be noticed, so that he might fit into my pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovely readers.
> 
> So, I've been on break a long time. Like, a properly really long time. During October through November I had my defining final high school exams, and from there I was just waiting in December to see how I done did. I done did alright. I've been writing the whole time, but I keep writing the fic out of sequence (I have about thirty pages of future chapters already written, but they are all out of order).
> 
> Updates should be faster at least for a while. I'll be starting work and uni soon, though, so we'll see how it goes from there. 
> 
> This chapter is sort of an interim chap, but I hope you like it.

“Do you think Chiron knows?” He is in a slight panic, when he wakes. He also bares dark red bruises along his throat and chest and I feel a pang of satisfaction for being their maker.

“Yes,” I murmur. There is a blue green bruise on his chest from where I bit down hard and I press down on it. He shudders. “I haven’t been subtle.”

“I didn’t notice anything particularly different.” He’s very nervous and he needn’t be.

“You didn’t want to notice, Pat.” I kiss his smooth shoulder and I cannot keep the happiness from my face. He is mine. At last. “I’ve been obvious. Chiron noticed a while ago.”

He swallows and nods. I can see him thinking it over. “Okay. Okay, so Chiron knows.” He nods again, frowning.

“Yes, and he doesn’t mind.”

“Okay.” He chews his lip and I kiss his neck where his pulse sings to me. “Your father – will he know? And your mother?”

I pause. “They do not know. They will, though.”

“You don’t have to tell them. I don’t mind, if you can’t.”

He says it all so seriously that I stop my ministrations and sit up. If it is so important to him, I will give it some importance. “I would have them know. It doesn’t have to be a grand coming out, I just won’t hide my feelings. I won’t stop myself from touching you or speaking as I like with you. That's all.”

He hesitates. “I promised, once, that I would never embarrass you.”

“Pat-”

“You have worked hard, to be what you are today. You are impossible.” He smiles his sheepish, crooked smile. “They can’t know. Your parents – that’s your call – but I think… I think maybe it should stop there.”

He’s so nervous. We touch each other’s dicks one night and now I feel him slip through my fingers – but it is not that. He is trying to contort himself to fit into the picture of my life so that he does not have to leave it altogether. He is trying to make himself impossibly small so that he might not be noticed, so that he might fit into my pocket.

“I would not be what I am without you. You have my heart.” I pat his chest and grin. He rolls his eyes, but I persist. “In here you have two hearts and one of them is mine. If you weren’t here, I’d never have known the sound of my own heart. Every man, hero or not, ought to know the sound of their own heart.”

“I will keep it safe for you, but not everyone needs to know the sound of your heart, Achilles. You want more than fame – you want to be a god.” It is my turn to roll my eyes. “Don’t be embarrassed, that’s what you want and I don’t want to get in the way of it.” He shrugs. “It’ll figure itself out. It might not even be an issue.”

I don’t know why I don’t tell him that I don’t want my ambitions to get in the way of him.

* * *

Chiron speaks to Patroclus on his own, but not to me. I don’t suppose he thinks I need it, and he is right, mostly. I hear them through the walls – I tell myself it is okay to listen because I would not ever use anything Patroclus said in private against him. I tell myself it is okay because it will help me understand him better. I tell myself a lot of things.

“You and Achilles – Patroclus, I don't mind.” I can hear the smile and reassurance in his voice. He does not talk to me that way. He speaks to us both like a father, almost, but to me he is stern and to Patroclus he is a gentle guide.

“Achilles said you knew. Said he was acting weird and that you realised. It was probably me too, though.”

“It was both of you.” There is a long silence. Patroclus is not accustomed to speaking to parental figures. “What are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid of everything,” he murmurs. “Everything.” He swallows. “He says he loves me and that we are for each other, but I’m afraid… He will tell his parents, and that frightens me, but perhaps he might tell the world and I don’t want to – to diminish his fame. And I think he might just jump into it and assume everything will be okay, because he’s so used to everything being fine, but it won’t be. He doesn’t realise the things people would say – and it could be a big statement, and there would be lots of people onside, but in the blink of an eye he’d go from being this great hero who everyone in the country wanted to be or fuck or both to some rainbow spattered figure of controversy who heaps of people adore, but others spit on and I know he'd hate it.”

“That’s a lot to be afraid of,” Chiron acknowledges. “Does Achilles share these fears?”

I would, I think, if I thought of them.

“I don’t think so. Not yet. When I’m with him, they seem like nothing to me too. I forget to worry. And then he’s gone and it’s all that exists in my head – the worrying.” He swallows and I hear him shuffle. “And I think that maybe he might leave again, without realising. It’ll be just like when he left to come here and I’ll be left far behind and he won’t realise – because he never means it. He won’t realise because we don't lie to each other – we're honest – but there are parts of himself that he doesn’t know and… and nothing, I guess. And nothing.”

“And he thinks of none of these things?”

“He doesn’t know people. He knows forests and mountains and waterfalls and beaches and how to track deer and he picks up dance moves from internet tutorials and he can list every bone in the body by heart but he doesn’t know people. He doesn’t know what they do, what they’re like.” His voice is barely a mumble. I cling to it.

“What are they like, Patroclus?” asks Chiron gently.

“They can be real bad. Hurt people for no reason. Say bad things to make themselves feel better, do terrible, selfish things. And Achilles doesn’t get it. People can be unkind, and not even know why.”

“I think you’ve known more unkindness than most, Patroclus.”

“Yeah.” His laugh is one great crack – a whip. “Yeah, I guess Mr Pelides told you about Dad.”

“He didn’t have to.”

I can't imagine how small he feels in that moment.

“I’m not stupid, for being afraid. Am I, Sir?”

“He says you are one with two hearts in his chest. He is one with two fates in his hands. They are strong hands,” says Chiron. I am transfixed, I cannot tear myself away. He speaks reassuringly of me to Patroclus, but I cannot think why. It is no secret that he thinks I have taken Patroclus’s ambitions hostage. Is this resignation in the same breath?

“He juggles, though, with those strong hands. And if he trips…”

“I do not envy you, Patroclus.”

I can see it in my head – Patroclus’s peculiar look of guilt as he stares at Chiron. It is the guilt of a child asking a truce of a man with a full artillery. When I emerge from Mount Pelion and Phthia it will be as casting off a cocoon. I will be surrounded by millions just like the foster boys who crowded around my talent. Chiron makes it difficult for Patroclus to prop up the charade that loving me is a great prize. If nothing else, having the world adore me will make Patroclus’s loving me less of a burden upon him. Loving a hero ought to be easier, I think.

“I do not envy Achilles, Sir. I don’t think anyone should. Juggling is difficult.”

It’s at times like this that I imagine it – Patroclus with someone who could give him everything. Patroclus going to university to become a nurse, sharing a dorm with a boy like me - but not me. He’s handsome and has a shyer smile than I – he plays sports, but isn’t the star. He gets top grades, but he’s a quiet achiever. He makes Patroclus smile more than I can. He’s gentle with Patroclus. He kisses Patroclus in public and neither of them worry.

I hate the boy. I hate that I am better and not nearly as good for Patroclus.

I should want to be this imaginary boy, but I find myself increasingly needing to claw my way out of Mount Pelion to a place where no one knows me; the only person who need know me is Patroclus. When I read of uncontrollable feelings of rage or jealousy or selfishness, I can only rarely relate to those 2D people trapped in pages, but now I feel all three and more swelling in my chest, my throat, my stomach and I know it is wrong – of course it is wrong. Patroclus does not feel these things – if he does they come in pangs, mere itches. For me they pulse and explode throughout my body and I am better than this – I am of the blood of an Immortal, better than all men and yet –

I smile and walk away. And then run.

If Patroclus says anything more than that, I am thankful not to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are my faves and make my day.


	14. My Anakin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Achilles struggles with control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!
> 
> So, a pretty late update and things are moving along slower than I would like with this fic. I have like, 20,000 words of future chapters ready but with no idea where to place them chronologically, but here's something for the here and now.
> 
> There's heavy Star Wars referencing in the chapter (not for the new one; for the prequel trilogy, basically). When I was watching Revenge of the Sith, I was just struck by how similar Anakin Skywalker is to Achilles. If you haven't watched Revenge of the Sith or any of the prequel trilogy, I've outlined the references at the bottom of the page (if you don't care about spoilers for the prequel trilogy - not to be confused with 'The Force Awakens', because there are no spoilers for that - I recommend you read my notes down the bottom first). If you desperately don't want the prequel trilogy spoiled, maybe just read until the second line break?

“Patroclus wears many bruises from you,” says Chiron one afternoon as he shields stern eyes from the glaring sun. He asked me to walk with him to the vegetable garden, and I knew we were in for a talk. My hero’s education is over; Chiron has nothing more to teach me on that front. Still I train, but I do so under my own guidance. I run every day and fight my invisible enemies as Patroclus watches beneath the shade of tall trees. It is only our knowledge of medicine that truly grows these days, and it is chiefly for Patroclus’s benefit. I am impatient to return home, to advance into the public sphere. Chiron tells me that Father will send for us when the time is right, and that the time will be soon.

Still, I feel young and foolish as blood rushes to my cheeks and I grimace. Patroclus and I have explored each other's bodies and in our intimacy I increasingly find my strength a burden. “I’m sorry, Sir. I try to take… precautions.”

He looks at me, always unsure. I never know what he sees in me. “You aren’t human, Pelides. You look human and that’s about it. You’re stronger than humans and your mind works differently. It’s important that you don’t pretend to be human, Achilles.” He pauses a moment, and smiles apologetically. “All this, and yet you are still a teenage boy.”

“I’ll stop,” I mutter. “If you want me to stop, I’ll stop. I don’t have to – if it would help, I will stop.”

“I haven’t been easy on you, Achilles. I don’t want you to think that trying to please me is more important than understanding and responding to a situation.” He places a hand on my shoulder and it makes me feel sick and glad and afraid.

“I find it difficult to keep a hold on control, when I’m – when I’m with him. It’s like when he was shooting at me and I broke his arm; I have to use constant restraint and he isn’t… encouraging of me making progress.” I grimace, hoping he reads between the lines. I remember Patroclus begging me for more – far more than he could take.

“If I were wiser than I am, I would tell you it is a bad idea for you to love, that you will have too much depending upon you to afford such a violent emotion,” he murmurs, and I can’t look at him. He thinks I have not had these thoughts. He is wrong.

“He soothes me. I feel most myself when I’m with him,” I reply, half wishing the breeze could sweep up our whole conversation.

“Are you?” he asks, cocking his head. “Or perhaps you simply like yourself best when you’re with him.”

“He makes me human,” I insist.

“And if you lost him?” Chiron asks.

“Lost him?” I echo.

“If he left. Or he died – ”

“He wouldn’t.”

“People die, Achilles. The path you lead him on is a dangerous one. Would you be able to let him go?”

“He wouldn’t die because I wouldn’t let him,” I snarl, and it does not sound like me. “I would be there; always, I will be there with him and no one will touch him, no one will hurt him because I am stronger than everyone else and he is mine and no one would dare!”

For a moment I feel hatred and it is a foreign thing. It dissipates quickly, however, beneath Chiron’s gaze.

“Do you think I’m a monster?” I ask. I have wondered since I arrived.

“You are talented beyond measure,” he says softly. “You are hardworking and dedicated, and you are content. Patroclus does make you happy. When you enter the world, some of this will be beaten out of you, and it is when men are beaten that they become monsters.” He shields his eyes from the sun once more. I am sure he has trouble looking at me, sometimes. “When you first arrived and I tried to persuade Patroclus to leave and go to a real school, it wasn’t only for his sake, Achilles, but when I stopped asking that of him – that I did for him alone. Because he has no one else but you.”

I look behind us back to the main house. I smell raw meat sitting on the bench. “Patroclus has started cooking,” I find myself saying to no one at all. “I’m meant to help him.” I begin to walk away and can feel Chiron's disapproval hanging in the air. “I’ll be more careful with him,” I call back. “Less bruises,” I promise. I walk briskly, but it feels like running away.

* * *

 

We watch Star Wars that night, because Patroclus keeps hearing it referenced in his television shows and films and because it seems like a normal thing to do, when you love someone – to just sit and watch films with them. I can’t give him a whole lot of normal – he sees more normal in his strange shows than in his stranger life.

“There are six out at the moment – they’re making a seventh,” he says, plugging the flash drive into the television.

“Thought you said they were pretty old?”

“Some of them are.” He fiddles with the remote. “They made the prequel trilogy kinda recently – Revenge of the Sith came out 2005. The last three are old, though.”

“You’ve seen them before, haven’t you Pat?” I ask and he smiles meekly.

“I was eight when Revenge of the Sith came out. Dad took me to see it. He tried to explain a bit of the plot to me before we got into the theatre. I didn’t really get it, but I remember liking the fights and effects and the ending… I remember finding that upsetting.” He’s frowning, and I can’t help the strange feeling that goes through me – that he called his father ‘Dad’.

“Your dad,” I murmur, and maybe the word sounds as though it has been chewed over too long. “You reckon when we’re done here, you’ll try visiting him? You’re eighteen, you know. We could if you wanted.”

He looks down at the remote, turning it in his hands. “Mummy’s sick – she’s always been sick. Maybe I’ll visit her before she dies.” His eyes flick up at me, and it’s hard to conceptualise his family – I do not think of them as his family, but I have had him for only three years, and they had him for fifteen. It does not seem real to me that he has a mother he loves and a father who was so cruel to him and that he remembers them; it is not a dream to him. In my head, he is almost an entity born from the earth just for me, but that is not so. “Even then, she won’t know me. I keep imagining that they don’t call because it’s tricky and they can’t find me, but that isn’t true. Dad has your father’s number – he could call any day he liked, and your father would tell him where I am or how to find me but he doesn’t want to find me.” He swallows. He would talk about it if I asked him, but I never do. “These films are about fathers, kind of.”

We leave it at that and watch. We watch one each day, and I like them, in a way. The dialogue is terrible and I only hardly care about the politics, but there is something in it; I think I might have been a Jedi, if I lived in the Republic. We get through the first two and we settle into bed as Patroclus lines up the third.

“You’re a bit like Anakin, I think. In a way.”

I laugh. “Surely, Patroclus, my acting isn’t so poor.”

“He tries his best with what he was given.” Patroclus thinks it over a moment. “He broods, like you.”

“I don’t brood!” I sputter, and shove him lightly. He laughs.

“Sure, you’re all cocky when you think people are watching, but by yourself you brood.” He grins. “I had a bit of a crush on Anakin, when I first watched it.” In a rare display, he smiles suggestively before bursting into laughter.

“And who does that make you, Patroclus? My brother, Obi Wan, or my lover, Padme?”

“Neither, I don’t think.” He lies down on his stomach and presses play. “Let’s watch.”

* * *

 

We sit in silence a moment as it finishes until I break it. “He killed Padme.”

Patroclus bites his lip. “Sort of. It wasn’t him that did it. It was a ‘broken heart’.” He shrugs.

“He was good though. He was so good – he was meant to be the Chosen One and he…” I can’t link it up in my head. The acting was still questionable at best ( _Maybe it’s the script, Achilles, you never know_ ), but it keeps bouncing about in my skull.

He frowns a moment, before grinning weakly. “You’re brooding.”

“Pat, I’m frightened I won’t always be in control.” Before I could process the thoughts, they found their way to my tongue. “I know it’s what Chiron’s afraid of. He thinks I let my power control me rather than the other way round.”

“I trust you,” he murmurs. He looks at me strangely before leaning forward to press his lips to mine. I forget we can do that sometimes, but as it dawns on me, I pull him close.

“Padme trusted Anakin.”

“And?” he whispers against my skin.

“He killed her –”

“Didn’t kill her, Achilles. Broken heart. Probably the Force or some shit – Padme’s last breath was at the same time as Darth Vader’s first. That’s what Palpatine meant when he said the Dark Side can save lives, maybe. He just never mentioned the price.” I grab his face in my hands and still him. He sits back and sighs. “My Anakin,” he whispers, stroking my hair. “Even after what he did, all she wanted was for Anakin to be okay. A terrible thing would be for you to lose control – worst of all would be if you broke my heart, and for that to happen, I would have to lose you.”

He gives me too much power over him. I think of him as mine, which ought to seem romantic, but I cannot imagine letting him go. I cannot imagine not having him; I think the world would be terribly quiet without him. I think I would have to scream to fill the silence.

“Anakin was too arrogant. He never listened,” I found myself saying. It is true enough. “Not even to Padme, and he was meant to love her. That’s where he went wrong.”

He nods into my chest and kisses me where he can.

He gives me too much power and still I feel powerless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers ahead:
> 
> So Anakin Skywalker is picked up as a kid with a super sick aptitude with the Force. There's a prophecy that he'll one day destroy the Sith (who use the Force to do bad shit). He falls in love with Padme, who is beautiful and lovely and works in the senate of the Republic. Anakin is a Jedi Knight, and they aren't meant to fall in love because it clouds their judgement and stuff, but Anakin is a pretty passionate dude and marries Padme in secret. In the third film she gets pregnant and he starts having visions of her dying in childbirth. He can't deal and keeps trying to find ways of saving her, but the advice other Jedi give him is basically 'learn to let go'. But Anakin had similar visions of his mother dying, and she did, later, in his arms, so he is not going to do that again.
> 
> A lot of other Jedi don't really trust Anakin because he's super powerful and more volatile than a Jedi is meant to be, and the similarities between Anakin and Achilles get uncanny in that Anakin is put onto the Jedi council, but they refuse to grant him the title 'Master' (which is meant to be implied when you join the Jedi council). This pisses him off heaps (massive insult to his pride), and kind of pushes him into the arms of the Dark Side (the Sith) even more. The Dark Side seduces him, telling him that only the Dark Side can save his wife, and he believes them. He turns on the other Jedi, essentially slaughters all of them (including a whole room full of children). Eventually there are literally two Jedi left. One of them is Obi-Wan Kenobi, who taught him all his life and is a friend of his, and he hides in a ship as Padme seeks out Anakin to ask him what the fuck he's doing. She confronts him, tells him she loves him but he's mad as shit and she can't keep going like that. Then he chokes her with the Force until she passes out (still pregnant!) because he saw Obi-Wan was on the ship, and he got jealous.
> 
> Obi-Wan then has to defeat Anakin, which he does, eventually. He chops off all Anakin's limbs and leaves him as he's set alight by lava. The Sith find Anakin and later turn him into the fully kitted out Darth Vader we know from the other films.
> 
> Obi-Wan helps Padme deliver twins. She seems to die of a broken heart or some shit (it's stated that physically, she's A-Okay), but it's generally thought that it was something to do with the Force as well.
> 
> The Sith tell Anakin as he rises that he killed Padme, which he basically didn't, but they say he did and he believes them.
> 
> With her dying breath, Padme insists there is still good in Anakin.
> 
> Episode III is good for the storyline, but the execution is pretty dodge. The novelisation is actually super good and helps you get into the mindset of Anakin (who was a serious hero, and then the worst villain ever). Essentially Anakin is very pure and kind, but he is first consumed by pride, then power, then grief - which I thinks mimics Achilles a lot.
> 
> "You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself...
> 
> "It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith - 
> 
> "Because now your self is all you will ever have."  
> \- Revenge of the Sith Novelisation
> 
> I think there are heaps of parallels and am considering writing an au where Achilles is a Jedi. If I don't, someone really ought to.
> 
> Comments are much loved!


	15. Chironides

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey.
> 
> Long time no update. I've started uni and it's pretty fun, but I've found that time moves in the strangest way. Only consolation in this fic is that the babes finally leave Mount Pelion and it's a pretty long chapter. Though I also realised it's fairly choppy and weird. Hope you like it anyway.

We leave Mount Pelion; it is not a day too soon. We do not have so many possessions to pack up – a few books, the new clothes my father would send over each season and a few miscellaneous objects we brought over when we first came, or made with our hands during our time with Chiron. Father has a car pulled up by the roadside. Every so often Mother would visit, stilling her car just here for me to get in, but when I see this place I imagine – for it is not a memory – Patroclus hesitantly getting out of one of my father’s cars and making his way nervously through thick forest until I find him.

We arrived separately, but it makes me feel warm and proud that we leave together.

“So you, Achilles, are to be a hero?” Chiron asks, smiling. He posed that question to me my first morning here.

“I think so,” I murmur. “I think I can.”

“You are brave and strong and fast and very clever, Pelides. And you are a man.” He places a hand on my shoulder. I am only eighteen; I do not feel like a man. Not even close. “You are a man, and not a weapon. You are not human, Achilles, and you’ll find most often that that is a good thing, but more often than not it means limits opposed to freedom.” His eyes skid to Patroclus, and I understand. He means I should not love, and that if I will disobey him – as I must – to be careful. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He pulls something from the pocket of his coat. “A parting gift, Pelides.” He places in my hand a throwing knife with a carved wooden handle. “It has a good weight and balance, if I do say so myself.”

He is right – it’s beautiful. I lean in to hug him. “Thank you, Sir, for everything.”

He accepts my hug and smiles. He is not sure what it is that he sends out to the world; he is not sure what destruction it might leave in its wake when it finds itself in a new environment. Chiron is a scientist and would have me watched carefully; I am a boy born and raised in the woods finally entering the world. I am a being of terrible strength and yet I blend in with humans – I have even taken one as a lover. He is afraid of what will come of me, but where we stand – where forest meets road – he can still be proud of me, just a man in the woods.

He turns to Patroclus. “Patroclus, does it surprise you to know that you are above average, but not in the realm of extraordinary?”

More words from years past, meant in jest, yet I feel something flare up within me – a snarl. _He’s mine_ , comes a rasping voice in my chest.

Patroclus only laughs. “No Sir, I’m not surprised.”

Chiron smiles at Patroclus. Years ago, I knew he favoured me as a pupil. I am sure, however, that Patroclus receives his warmth. “You are who you wish to be, I think. Does that please you?”

Patroclus smiles sheepishly. “Yes, Sir.”

“And though you place your life in his hands, you know there is a world out there that you are more than capable of mastering for yourself?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Chiron nods, but something is on his mind. “I’ve a burden, Patroclus. Mr Pelides has asked that I be the one to inform you that you will not be able to return to your family. At first I did not mind – I didn’t think you ever intended to return to your family for any extended period of time. But then he told me why, and instructed me to tell you of that too.”

“My mother?” he breathes.

“Patroclus, your mother has passed. Months ago – your father never contacted Mr Pelides. It was only when Mr Pelides called your father to inform him that you were of age and returning from your studies that that particular piece of information became available.” Chiron looks at Patroclus with a sort of pity, and Patroclus simply stares. I take his hand, and it takes him a long time to squeeze my fingers. “I wish that were all.”

“He remarried,” murmurs Patroclus, his voice drenched by disbelief – and yet he is the one to make the assertion. “Someone pretty – she needn’t have money; he has every penny my mother’s family had tucked away in his pocket.”

“Yes, and – ”

“I’ve been disowned. And – and…” He laughs, but his fists are clenched. “And she’s pregnant with a child. Dad’s starting over.”

There is a long silence. “Patroclus. I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell you.”

Patroclus takes a breath and holds it for a terribly long time. “It’s okay. I knew it was going to happen. I hoped… But I expected he would – that she would…” He swallows. “I knew she was dying.” He releases another shuddering breath. “Months… I’ve missed the funeral?”

“I’m very sorry, Patroclus.”

His face crumples, but he is strong. I pull him to my chest, and he rests there for only a few moments before coming up for air. There are tears on his cheeks, and his features are alien in their despair.

“You have my deepest consolations. And – and I would give you my name, if you have no other in mind.”

Patroclus freezes. “He steals my name?”

“I thought you would be ashamed to wear it,” replies Chiron, and the irony makes Patroclus laugh.

“Your name… ‘Patroclus Chiron’?” he asks. It surprises me that the idea has not been immediately shot down.

“I thought perhaps you could adapt it, similar to Achilles’s last name. ‘Chironides’.”

When I see his frown, I explain, “Adding ‘ides’ to names means they are the son of a person with that name.”

“I have not been a son to you,” Patroclus whispers.

“You have been more of a son to me than he has been a father to you,” Chiron insists, and I’m not sure how I feel about the offering. My instinct had been to imagine him ‘Patroclus Pelides’, but the thought had scarcely crossed my mind before it was snatched away; he cannot be mine, publically. “It’s yours to have, if you would like it. You don’t have to decide today. I would be proud for you to have it.”

Patroclus nods. “Thank you, Sir. I will… I will consider it.”

* * *

 

We sit in the car in silence until I cannot bear it any longer.

“Would you have gone back to them?” I ask, and I know I shouldn’t.

He looks out his window as he replies, “No.”

“Do you ever miss them?” I ask. I have never so boldly brought it up. “Your parents, I mean. You never spoke to them. You hardly spoke _about_ them.”

“I don’t – I don’t think it’s possible to miss people when you can no longer remember what you’re missing,” he murmurs. “I don’t remember them that well – they’ve faded. I remember Mum was always sick, and I remember Dad shouted a lot, but I don’t remember the smell of her perfume or the sound of his voice. I could describe them in words – her perfume was too sweet and his voice impossibly deep – but that isn’t the same as remembering. That’s just storing things in words.” His mouth pulls up bitterly on only one side – it is an odd expression on his face. “Dad wouldn’t know me, I don’t think. If he saw me on the street, he wouldn’t know me.”

I nod. “You still call your father ‘Dad’.” He knows me well enough to know it to be a question.

“It’s just what I call him,” he mumbles. He closes his eyes and leans his cheek against the cool of the car window. “Do I love them? That’s what you want to ask. I did. Even before I left, though, I knew Dad didn’t love me. He said so. He asked what he’d done so wrong to get a kid like me, what kind of a shit father winds up with me for a son.” A son like Patroclus. I had been unconditionally spoilt – never left wanting, thus never wanting a thing. Happy because I didn’t know what it felt to be displeased or inferior to anyone on the planet. Patroclus’s family home had been filled with unspoken rules and requirements – still, he was spoilt, in a way. Always with big TVs and the most up to date gaming console, the best schools. But a word or tone wrong, and he was reprimanded. Disobedience was met with a lashing of his father’s tongue or brute force. He swallows. “Before she had me, she’d already been pregnant. She miscarried.”

I let this roll around in my head. It doesn’t take me long to reach the same conclusion as a very young Patroclus had. “Oh.”

“I imagine that for my every failing, he thought of that kid and what it might have been and what I wasn’t. I feel like he has all these ideas about what it might have been like – his fantasy son. His fantasy son would have loved sport, would have been top of every class, but not a nerd. He’d never have been a dumb little kid who asked lots of questions about everything and got picked on by his friends’ kids.”

“He didn’t deserve you,” I mutter, gripping his shoulder.

He smiles weakly. “He would agree with you there.”

I shake my head. “No. Patroclus, I…” I stop and let my rage simmer away. Both Patroclus and my father have confirmed that I met Patroclus and his father when I was very young (Father had brought it up and Patroclus’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ – he remembered a boy racing about the gardens with blonde hair and bare feet). I don’t remember them, but I had made fast friends with other children, apparently. Something about the way Patroclus recounted that day – it was a fete or carnival, something doused in sunshine and the laughter of children – makes me wonder if Patroclus’s father’s fantasy son wasn’t blonde and fast and able to easily snap up the attention of other children. He had not played with me, that day. “I don’t deserve you. I imagine that maybe in another lifetime I must have been a truly great hero – better than I could hope to be in this one – to have you with me now.”

“I doubt it,” he mumbles. “However much you like me, I’m not what’s best for you. Even if I weren’t a boy, I’d still be poor. Your dad is tolerant, but even he wouldn’t like this. We were meant to grow apart.”

I let it sink in. Probably, it’s true. “We were always going to grow apart or together. I knew that when I told you how I felt; I either had to push you away, or hold on to you and never let go, because you couldn’t be in arms reach and not be mine.” He nods and a flush crawls up his cheeks. Tears will spill soon. “You are my great love. Like in legends and stories – you’re the love that makes any other seem impossible – the love that kills other loves. Even if they were wealthy and kind and somehow approved by Mother and Father, I could only have you.”

He takes shuddering breaths and tears begin to track his cheeks. His hands cover his face, before he glances up at me and whimpers, “He hates me, Achilles. Dad really hates me.”

“Pat, if he saw you on the street, he’d think you were a great guy. I bet he would. Because you know he’s gonna have that kid with his new wife, and he’s gonna pick it to bits too. Maybe he’ll have that kid with him one day, walking through a museum or something, and he’ll see you, thinking you’re a stranger, and he’ll wish that kid could be as good as you – as smart and kind and thoughtful. Because nothing he produces can ever be good enough. Pity your half brother or sister for the home they’re being born into, Pat.”

I press him against my chest and the pads of his fingers dig into my shoulder. “I’m without home,” he whispers. “I have nothing. Less than before.”

“Years ago I promised Chiron I would look after you,” I murmur.

“I can’t repay you.”

“I ask for nothing.” I twine my fingers through his. “I’m a liar – I ask for everything. I ask for you.”

He shakes his head. “If we were to – I wouldn’t be able to repay you, if we…”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.” He shakes his head, but I still him, holding his face in my hands. “Everyone knows I’m selfish except you, Patroclus. Mother and Father know what they raised. Chiron knew before he even set eyes on me. They aren’t wrong, Patroclus.”

The car jerks on the uneven road, but my Patroclus stares at me, his eyes shining with tears. “No…”

“When you look into a person’s eyes, I think you see things the way they do – a glimpse like a reflection of the world inverted. When I look at you, I see me as you see me, and I like him so much better than the man I see in the mirror. You make me so much better than I am.”

The remainder of the drive followed in silence but for a small ‘Thank you’ an hour later.

* * *

 

Our arrival at Phthia is a public affair; the boys crowd out the front to greet us. There are new faces there, and the boys who remain have been stretched skywards. I greet them with some enthusiasm, but it occurs to me that my time on Mount Pelion has seen me grow accustomed to solitude but for Patroclus.

“My boy!” calls my father, and he parts the crowds of youths to greet me. “My boy, you’ve grown.”

“Thank you, Father. Chiron says I’m ready.” I hug him, and I am taller than him – Patroclus and I both stand inches higher. We were of a similar height, before I left.

He turns to Patroclus and his smile diminishes. “Patroclus. Terrible business. Sorry to hear it. I did meet your mother – deserved better than she got.”

“That’s kind of you Sir,” Patroclus murmurs. I almost take his hand.

“But we shall look after him, won’t we Father?” When Father frowns, I add, “You do remember that he’s my sidekick, don’t you, Father? Do you remember?”

At this a smile appears. “He was to be your nurse, if I recall. Is he up for it?”

“He studied with Chiron, Father. And he knows how to treat me – he understands how I heal, how I move, how I feel. No one – not even the people you have test me – understand me the way he does.”

Father nods, before shrugging, hands up in defeat. “Would it make a difference if I said no?”

“Not to Patroclus. He has supported me through my training. I will help him until we are both employed,” I say, and Patroclus looks humiliated. Father only nods, a small frown troubling his face.

“I can have a spare room prepared for you, Patroclus, if you would like?”

I am afraid of what Patroclus might respond, so I answer for him. “It’s been three years since I slept in a room without him, Father.” I smile easily. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep without him. My senses are very – acute.”

Father laughs, and if he detected a strangeness in our behaviour, he has chosen to ignore it. “Then you boys should unpack.”

* * *

 

He stands at the window and the soft yellow rays of the evening sun illuminate him. In my old room untouched by time, we are grown. He doesn’t hear me approach – when I turn him around by twisting his hips to face mine, he gasps. He melts into my kiss.

“I wanted to tell him, Pat,” I breathe. “The whole time I kept thinking about how much I wanted to tell him and how he couldn’t know.”

I pull his shirt over his head and stare a while at the kingdom that is mine.

“You’re all bruised up from me.” Along his chest are blots of green and blue skin. “You’re always bruised from me. Chiron didn’t like it.”

He shivers. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing you aren’t fucking Chiron.”

I laugh at that. “I think we should talk about it.”

“Or not,” he murmurs, absently licking his lips. “If anything were wrong, I’d tell you to stop. I never do.” I cross my arms and he rolls his eyes. “I can see you holding back. When we… I can see you restraining yourself. I don’t like that.”

“I hold myself back because I love you, Patroclus,” I whisper. “And I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says, shaking his head. “Please, Achilles.”

I take him in – there’s something off. That seems a stupid thing to think; today he found out his mother died and that he had been disowned – and yet…

I retract my arm from his waist. “Maybe tonight we should just sleep. It’s been a – a big day.”

“No.” Panic flashes in his eyes and he shakes his head. “No, Achilles I – ” He cuts himself off and swallows. Behind him, through the window, the sun slides down the sky, stretching our shadows. He closes his eyes. “If we had to talk about it, I would have to tell you that I like it, when you’re rough. I might have to tell you that I need it. That I crave it. So we really – we shouldn’t talk about it.”

Something primitive – instinctual – unfurls in my stomach. “You want…” He hasn’t been humouring me all this time – it’s not just been playing along. This whole time… “If we were talking about it,” I take a step forward and he takes a step back, his shoulder blades now pressing into the cool of the window, “would you tell me that this is what you want?” I remove my shirt and he shivers.

“Yes.” He breathes shakily.

“Do you like it when I bite you?” I ask, cocking my head to the side. I am a predator, I think.

He nods.

“Say it,” I whisper.

“Yes. Yes, I like it, Achilles.”

“And when I leave marks on your skin? Do you like that?” I trace them with my fingers.

“Yes.”

I pull him into my arms and I can feel his unsteady breathing and racing pulse and I am a hunter and he is my prey. I press his hips into mine so he can feel my arousal. “And when I fuck you so hard that you can feel it the next day – that I can see it in your gait? Do you like that?”

He trembles. “Yes,” he pants.

“And if I crossed a line, you would tell me?”

His eyes soften. “I promise.”

“Good,” I mutter, and a second later I have him pinned to my childhood bed. I drag a finger across his cheek. “You have to be quiet so Father can’t hear.”

He nods, and that’s all I need before I devour him.

* * *

 

He’s wrecked, when I finish. For a few minutes, all I can do is stare at the ceiling as we catch our breaths.

“That was okay?” I ask. The sun has vanished, and I can only see his face in moonlight.

He laughs tiredly. “Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

All of my energy feels sapped away. “I feel different, when we – when I make love to you.” He laughs at my stumbling phrasing. “I feel as though I’m possessed by something else. It frightens me – what I might do to you. I feel guilty for what I do to you.”

The number of bruises on his chest has doubled. “You don’t want me to tell you how much I like it again, do you?” he murmurs, smiling.

I roll over to face him and stroke his arms. “I need you to tell me why you like it, Patroclus.”

The light goes out of his eyes and he shakes his head. “Not tonight, Achilles. Please not tonight.”

“I just need one reason and it doesn’t have to be your best or biggest or entire answer,” I beg. I kiss his shoulder and he sighs. “I just need to make sure the reason isn’t just that it makes me happy, because that might about kill me with shame.”

He laughs at me. “Obviously it is a bit. It’s annoying to think you have to hold yourself back. But there’s more,” he says hurriedly. “It’s – I don’t have to worry about a thing. I know you’ll take good care of me. And it makes me feel present. I don’t know if you were around when Chiron mentioned the starving villagers in Brazil?” he asks. I blink back at him. “Right. Starving villagers in Brazil – withering away, struck by poverty. Apparently they had a lot of sex, though, and they say it’s because it makes them feel as if they exist in a physical sense, that they’re there and alive. Obviously I’m not starving, but when you touch me the way you do – hard and everywhere – I feel… significant.” He closes his eyes. “So that’s a reason.”

He makes to get up, but I cling to his wrist. “You are completely mine. That’s what it feels like to me, Pat; like you’re exclusively, entirely mine. I told you I was selfish.”

He nods, before finding a towel and cleaning us up. For a while, I relax beneath his fingers pulling the rough cloth over my stomach – but then I hear it. I still him – he is crying.

“Pat, I’m sorry – ”

“I should be upset that Mum’s dead,” he gasps. I sit up. “I shouldn’t give a fuck about Dad, but all I keep thinking is that he hated me. I thought he might think that being around you and your family might make me better. I thought he would want to see me, at least, once I’d grown up, just to see for himself.” He looks at me, and I wonder if I’ve ever felt half the pain contained in my Patroclus’s eyes. “I would’ve been good. I would’ve been the son he wanted – I’d’ve tried so hard this time round.”

I place my hands on his shoulders. “He doesn’t deserve you.” He shakes his head. “Not the other way round, Patroclus. _He_ doesn’t deserve _you_.” He shakes his head again, dark hair wet with sweat sticking to his skin. “You don’t believe me.” I drag the pad of my thumb across his cheek, wiping away a tear. “That’s okay, Patroclus. Eventually, though. Eventually you’ll take my word for it.”

Wordlessly, he lies back down beneath the covers.

I do not know how long it will be before he believes me, but the next morning he calls Chiron, accepting his name and my jealousy is drowned by relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments rock my world.


	16. Peace and Restlessness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The worst updater ever is back. I'm pretty unhappy with this chapter, but I don't think it'll get any better, so here it is.

The days drift by lazily in Phthia – long, drawn out afternoons of nothing. Patroclus might run with me in the morning, and some days we walk the few kilometres that take us to the sheep farm nearby to picnic. The world seems very quiet, with only short interactions with my father and the other boys before Patroclus and I seem to float away as though on a cloud. It is bliss, yet I itch for something I cannot yet describe.

One morning, just like any other, we sit at the breakfast table with Father away from the other boys as we have our way with an assortment of eggs, bacon, toast and porridge. I am sure I eat more than Patroclus and Father combined when I notice Father stealing glances at me only to look abruptly away when I notice. I place my cutlery down.

“What is it Father?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

He clears his throat and places his knife and fork on the table. I nudge Patroclus’s foot with mine and he looks up mid mouthful. “You have… offers.”

I could guess what he means but that he seems so uncomfortable at its suggestion, I have to make sure. “As in for work? As a hero?”

It is more difficult for me to refer to myself as a hero – or ‘superhero’ – since having lived with Chiron. It sounds like the talk of a child – heroes must have a sense of virtue more than power, and yet power all the same. I am sure I am not one.

He nods. “In – in a sense, yes. We have men coming down to see you. Military men.” He hesitates, chewing over the information. “People have been experimenting, trying to make _you_.”

“Immortals?” asks Patroclus.

Again, Father looks unsure. “Yes. Yes, I suppose they’re trying to recreate the initial accident. But early attempts in that – well. They were finding bodies in creeks with peculiar mutations, and not just a few. So now they only try parts. Trying to build up strength longterm without turning the sod into the Incredible Hulk, or giving someone superspeed without damaging joints and organs. From what I gather, there have been a lot of failures and only a few test subjects with anything _near_ what you or your mother have.”

“And the military’s doing this?” asks Patroclus, bewildered.

“No. Heavens no – it’s all underground; the military’s trying to shut it all down. They’re experimenting on kids, trying to get formulas to sell – you can imagine the market for it, of course. What people wouldn’t pay to have your mind, strength or speed. It’s getting a bit X Men meets Frankenstein.” Father shrugs. “Everyone’s been trying to keep it under wraps, but you hear things, even out here.”

“And they want me to stop it?” I ask. I laugh. “I am the very thing they fight against. I am a corruption of nature – and they would have me fight this fight?”

Patroclus stares at me, mouth agape. Perhaps it is becoming real, what I was trained for.

“Father,” I insist. “Surely this is stupid at best, and just plain – well, plain hypocritical?”

“You might ask them that when they arrive,” says Father, picking up his cutlery.

Patroclus excuses himself.

* * *

I find him by the river near the sheep farm, sitting amidst tall, green grass. It was always going to be my room, the roof, or the farm. I remember discussing my future years ago by this very stream, the sound of nearby bleating melodic in the memory.

“You’re upset.”

“I’m not sure,” he says. He picks up a twig and begins snapping it into little pieces. “I’m not sure if I’m upset. I don’t know.”

He is so beautiful. His teeth still sit strangely in his mouth. He gets five o’clock shadow by lunchtime, and he’s gonna do some damage to his back if he keeps slouching all the time. But what is most beautiful – stunning, even – is his patience. It seeks to evade him, so he has sat himself down by a stream and lambs and closes his eyes to accept that when he opens them, there will be nothing left.

“This will change things, a bit,” I say softly. I sit myself down beside him. “Whether I say yes or no, we know I have to do _something_.”

“Yes,” he whispers. “I know.”

“Will you come with me, when I go?” I take his hand and squeeze it. He opens his eyes and smiles sadly.

“Where else could I go?” he asks, tilting his head to the side. I feel a stab of guilt, and my face must betray me, for he casts his gaze down. “I’m sorry, that was… I dunno what that was. Obviously I’ll go with you, wherever that is.”

“I know I ask too much.”

“It’s nothing.”

I know my Patroclus, yet there are times I wish I could see into his mind. Meet the monster he calls ‘Dad’, feel the peace that flows through him, see me as he sees me.

“It’s your life, Pat,” I say slowly.

“It’s…” A shaky breath. His mother is dead. He is dead to his father. And I want to leave. “It’s nothing.”

I lie back and run my fingers through his hair, before cupping his ear. “You are the most important thing in the world to me. I like you best, I love you most.”

“You…” He turns so he rests on his side, facing me. He is so serious that I almost laugh. “You know I wouldn’t stop you. You know I can’t help but follow you, wherever you go. That’s what bothers me.”

I grin, feeling we have found peace. “But that isn’t a problem at all.”

He shakes his head. “Our lives are not entwined, Achilles. You are my life. Where I go, what I do – it’ll be decided by you.”

He’s right, of course. My first instinct is to defend myself – tell him it isn’t my fault. But that isn’t what this is about. “I’m sorry, Pat.”

“It’s not you.”

I scoff. “It isn’t me? Patroclus, who else –”

“I do it to myself. I – I do it to myself.” He sighs and stares up into the clouds. “I’m not ambitious, I’m not driven. You hear about a fight, and you wanna join it. I hear about it, and I just think, ‘I guess if Achilles goes, I’ll go too’. I guess. If I have to – which I don’t, you just said so, I know – but if you went, of course I have to.”

I remember Patroclus tangled in my sheets, insisting I maul him, to do as I pleased. He wouldn’t explain why – or couldn’t. I think about it more than I ought to. He seeks approval, I suppose is the thing. His father is a callous man, yet Patroclus cried at the idea of never being able to prove himself, and then I recall the way his eyes had lit up when Chiron praised him during classes, and how we are together – his movements always in reaction to mine – there is a pattern.

“I like you best, I love you most,” I repeat.

“It doesn’t matter. About… I’m not upset.”

“Yes you are,” I say simply.

He shrugs. “But I know I shouldn’t be.”

“And that changes nothing.”

I watch his adam’s apple bob up and down as he accepts it all. “Okay. I’m not upset.”

“You haven’t asked me if I plan on going.”

He frowns; the notion that I might not leave has not occurred to him. “But you said…?”

“I don’t think I want to go with them.” I’m surprised to find that it sounds true to my own ears. “I’ll listen to what they say, but I don’t think I want to go with them. Not this time.”

He sits up all the way, eyes wide. “If it was because of something I said –”

“It wasn’t.”

“Because you know I would never –”

“I know you wouldn’t.” I crawl over to him and seat myself on his lap. I can’t tell you how he looks at me. On Mount Pelion, Chiron taught us about drugs – happiness in a bottle, a powder, a joint. If I could bottle that look, grind down to a fine powder every twitch of his lips as he tries to conceal his thoughts, set alight and be surrounded by his moans and gasps, I doubt I should ever spend a day sober. “I’ll listen to what they have to say, but there will be other offers. Better offers.”

He nods. The world is set right. When I kiss him, I imagine that the quickening of my blood is chemical. It might as well be.

\--

The men introduce themselves – Odysseus and Diomedes. Generals, they say. They seem impossibly glad to meet me, and I try not to let it get to my head. All the same, the idea of finally getting to show off makes my body sing and I cannot keep myself from grinning. I am relieved when they ask for a demonstration of my skills – had they not, I mightn’t have been able to resist begging them to watch.

I run for them, jump for them. I shoot and fight for their viewing pleasure. Odysseus looks over my data, and I grin as I slice open the palm of my hand just so I can observe their expressions as it heals as though by magic. They want me – I can tell.

Patroclus watches all the while, and I can sense his concern. I enjoy their attention too much – but I’ve earnt it. I’ve earnt the looks of awe and surprise, and that’s all I want. It pulls at me more than I can say.

“You’ve exceeded our expectations,” says Odysseus, and I beam. I steal a glance at Patroclus, who has shadowed us throughout the experience. His expression is altogether blank. “We can offer position, prestige, fame and wealth. Not,” he adds, “that you’re lacking on any of those fronts. Nonetheless, it would be a shame for abilities like yours to go to waste.”

“I’m glad,” I say, and I aim for composure. “But I’m not sure about the timing, really.”

“The timing,” sneers Diomedes. I was given the impression throughout my performance that Odysseus was the talker. It is not difficult to see why. “What about it?”

“I’m young. I don’t know the world I’m protecting – and frankly, I can’t think of any immediate threat. You speak of glory, but in what? I’d be just another General at best. I want a cause, and a few underground operations trying to catch out people making me doesn’t fit the bill.” Patroclus releases a long breath, and I see Odysseus’s eyes narrow. “I’m grateful for the offer. I let you come and showed you what I could do as a promise – I won’t let my gifts go to waste. But I think it would be a waste to give them too early.”

“Perhaps, Pelides, there are things about our _cause_ that we can’t tell you,” spits Diomedes. “Perhaps–”

“We’re honoured that you showed us what you’re capable of, Achilles. Do you mind if I call you Achilles?” interjects Odysseus.

I shrug.

“Thing is, we assumed we would be taking you back with us. We would be much obliged if you would let us spend the night.” Odysseus laughs good-naturedly, and I try to join in.

“We can have our man drive you,” I reply. I do not miss the look that passes between Diomedes and Odysseus.

“All the same, we’re not expected back so early. You would be doing us a favour letting us stay.”

It doesn’t sit right. “There are nicer towns a few miles away. I could draw a map–”

“For fuck’s sake!” bursts Diomedes, and Odysseus seems suddenly afflicted by a migraine. “We were sent to recruit you. We’ve failed. We’re meant to stay the night in case you change your mind – we can’t go back empty handed without having tried everything. You get it, kid?”

At some point Patroclus stood up. I feel his presence behind me. He loves me. These men have admired me and wanted me, but they do not love me, I remind myself. “You can stay, then, but I’ve made up my mind.”

Odysseus’s gaze lingers on Patroclus far longer than it should.

* * *

 

I love him slowly, that night. Carefully – when he had a broken arm and I imagined loving him, it was like this. I think maybe it could always be like this.

But when I wake up, I am bound in the front seat of my mother’s car as a cityscape swims before us. The backseat is empty.


	17. Drowning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time coming. Warning - this chapter is a bit of a weird one. It's line breaks galore and a lot too much angst and I can't really justify its quality. It came all at once, so I'm hoping I won't have too many regrets with its direction. As always, happy to chat about the whats and whys in the comments.
> 
> On the upside, I am 16,000 words into the Jedi Au nobody knew they needed. So look out for that in thirty years' time :)

She explains. Skyros devours us, and she explains that we are running away. We are hiding from Odysseus and Diomedes because there are things we don’t know, things we ought to find out. They were going to take me with or without my consent, she insists. She came as soon as Father told her about them.

“And Patroclus?” I ask.

Her grip tightens around the steering wheel.

“What of Patroclus?” Skyros is by the seaside – it hugs the shore. It is somewhere tourists might stop to get ice cream. “I won’t leave him behind. Not again.”

“My son,” she says. “Achilles, Patroclus is a secret, isn’t he?”

I nod stiffly. “It’s no one’s business.”

She hums her assent. “I agree. I have found us refuge while we figure out what’s going on.”

“We need no refuge –”

“They were going to take you,” she hisses. “They were going to steal you away in the night same as me, but when you awoke, you would have been nothing but a weapon. I know them. I know what they wanted. I just don’t know why.” She is silent a long while. I think to smash the windows open and leap out of the car, but I know how easily she would catch me. “I’ve found you a bride.”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “You know I don’t like –”

“Yes, I know,” she snaps. “To save face. You want to be a hero one day? Don’t you think it’ll seem strange that you never so much as look at women? Marry her now, fuck her once or twice, and that’s it. That’s all you have to do.”

It’s simple. It’s unthinkable. It’s too much. “I should talk to Patroclus.”

“After you marry Deidamia, I’ll have him delivered to your doorstep. You can do whatever you want with him, then.”

“What’s to stop me from calling him first chance I get? Do you think I can’t find him?”

She drums her fingers on the rim of the steering wheel. “Your Patroclus is homeless and an orphan and hasn’t graduated high school. He doesn’t have a car – he doesn’t have a wallet. Marry Deidamia, and none of that has to matter. I’ll let you keep your pet comfortable.” I can’t think of what to say – I make to explode, but all that comes is an agitated sigh. She continues. “For the time being, you need support from your father and me. Patroclus needs support from you. Marry Deidamia, and it’s that simple. The two of you will have everything you need.”

* * *

She’s a dancer – a ballerina. She comes from this nothing town, but they say she could make it big. In spite of that, and in spite of her peculiar softness. There are women I’ve seen who you can tell by a single glance are dancers – all angles and long muscles pulled tight across graceful limbs. Deidamia, though still impossibly small, is cherubic, childlike. When mother shows me a video of one of her recitals, I am surprised by her elegance.

She is also the daughter of a pastor, which Mother insists is of no consequence, but makes me feel terribly uneasy.

She is pleased with me. Deidamia – she is pleased with what she sees. Mother has promised her me, a little money and introductions at the National Ballet. She has a cute little chin, big eyes and long dark hair. I should be pleased with her.

She takes my hand and I am shocked by how small hers is. It is like a child’s. She is so small – not like Patroclus. She is nothing at all like Patroclus. On the drive to the registry office, he is all I think of – Patroclus. The way he smiles when he sees me, the way he attaches himself to my side. How he looks around before leaning in to kiss me.

I think of my Patroclus leaving Father’s house without a penny, trying to find work. Maybe the army after all? Maybe picking fruit, maybe selling shoes, maybe flipping burgers, maybe mopping floors. Not a nurse. Not for a while. Not with how things are, and that’s on me.

I take Deidamia’s tiny hand in marriage, with that thought. Things are twisted up and confused and awful, but I feel sure that if I do this, I might have him, and I might be able to make him happy. He needs me, and I need my parents and I need money and I need glory and I marry Deidamia because I need him.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

I fuck Deidamia.

 

 

 

 

Once or twice.

 

 

 

I don't want to. I don’t like it. When it is over, I heave a sigh of relief and wait for him.

* * *

I take up ballet, because I enjoy showing off, and I watch as the other dancers almost boil over from jealousy; most things I only need observe once. I enjoy it too much – their fury. Patroclus would tell me to stop, but he isn’t here.

He isn’t here.

I like the dancing and teasing the ballerinas, but I married and fucked Deidamia and still he has not been returned to me. I am trapped in Skyros, waiting for my destiny just as Deidamia waits for me, haunting doorways and watching me with her dark eyes.

I call Father only to hear that Patroclus left to find me. When I ask how I might contact him, he seems stumped – he had not thought of that, he admits. _But Patroclus has a way of finding you, of course. No need to worry, no need to worry._

Increasingly I find myself going to the cliffs that tower over the sea and watching the waves smash into the rocks below. I imagine jumping into the crashing waves and finding something to hold onto. I think the silence beneath the water’s surface would settle me.

I run and wait and dance and wait and train and wait until I scream into the open air – at the setting sun and the constant waves – before returning to dine with Deidamia and her father while I think of Patroclus.

* * *

I mimic the movements of Damian. He demonstrates again – _Pay attention to the angle of my feet and the tension in my knees –_ and I repeat the movement exactly.

“Correct, Achilles. You’ll be teaching me, soon.” He pats me on the back, but he is not pleased. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that he has trained a very long time to be quite good – though not good enough – at something my body can read and regurgitate at will. It does not help that I am bored. “Would you like to try a sequence?”

I shrug and I catch him twitch. Deidamia said it might be fun to choreograph something for their next show. Damian had been excited to teach me, at first – thought me a ballet prodigy. He is tired of me, now, because I lack his passion but not his skill. He lists a slew of words as he strings together a few of the movements I had learned. He hopes I will ask for help partway through, but my body sees the steps and feels them as its own. I do not even have to think.

It is then – my mind numb and wasting – that I wake.

“Stop, a moment,” I murmur. Damian freezes almost comically. I must have sounded funny. I feel funny.

“What?”

“Someone’s here. I think…”

“The rooms are soundproof.”

“Through the window. The footsteps and heartbeat…” I glance across the room to the window, but whoever I heard is out of view. “Show me something harder. I want to impress them.”

Damian’s mouth pulls down just a little, but his frown is quickly replaced by his showman’s smile. “Of course.”

He throws some jumps in – I think he is trying to impress me, rather – but I cannot be thrown. I feel the movements in my limbs, I feel the adrenaline send me higher. When I hear the doorhandle rattle, my tempo increases. I’m repeating jumps, I’m adding rotations. When I stop, I drink in the sight of my Patroclus frozen in awe, standing in the doorway of Skyros Ballet Studio room 301.

“About time,” I breathe, and only hardly stop myself from kissing him in front of Damian.

* * *

“You left me for ballet?” he asks as we leave the studio, his voice strained as he forces it to remain light.

I touch the inside of his wrist. I want him to look at me. “No. Of course not, no. Odysseus and Diomedes – apparently I was being… conscripted more than recruited. That’s what Mother told me, and I figured… well, I didn’t figure much, she took me – drugged me, actually.” I smile, but it’s uncomfortable. He is wearing one of my old backpacks, and if fits all his possessions with ease. “I’m glad Mother sent for you.”

He is silent, at that, choosing to look about Skyros. Perhaps he tires of that, for his eyes eventually land on my hand.

“That finger’s for a wedding ring, you know,” he says cautiously. When I am silent, he stops walking. “Achilles, what’s the ring for?”

I try to order it in my head. “I – Mother wanted it. She was going to cut us off, I was going to be taken, I…”

“She was going to cut ‘us’ off?” he asks, his voice distant.

“Yes. The money was going to run out, if I didn’t… She said it was better I married now. It would avoid future suspicion.”

It’s not making sense to him. It’s hardly making sense to me.

“The money… You married a girl for money?” he asks. The way he looks at me – as though I am a stranger.

“I won’t live with her. It’s just an agreement – a contract.” He doesn’t know me. I look about, and when I see the street is empty, I lean into him. “I know you think I’m being petty, but I can’t do anything for you without my parents. I can’t afford for them to cut me off. I think Mother will ease up, after this. You’re here, like she promised –”

“She never contacted me,” Patroclus whispers. “She never called. Your father rattled off a few towns you might have been. Why do you think it took me so long?”

For a moment, I slid beneath the waves, the silence rolling over me. Too soon, my head breaches the ocean’s surface and hear the jumble of the sea like static.

He sighs. I’ve disappointed him. He’s never looked at me this way. “Did you have sex with her?”

The brine slaps me in the face, stinging through the numb in my icy cheeks, but the water won’t take me down again.

“Yes. Mother said I was meant to.”

He has spent a month trying to find me, and he does not recognise me.

“I didn’t like it, Pat.” He nods slowly. Perhaps the waves deafen him too. “It felt wrong, and I didn’t want to, but Mother said… But she lied.”

Patroclus nods again, his eyes straying to my left hand. For some reason, I think it a good idea to take the ring off and slip it into my pocket, but his expression doesn’t falter.

“When we leave this place, it will be together. We won’t have to see her.” I swallow. I can’t seem to slow my pulse, nor the ache in my throat. He has never taken so long to forgive me, and something in me has realised that he might not. “I don’t love her. I don’t like her. I think of you, every day I think of you. I did this for you too. I know you think it doesn’t matter about the money, but with everything else I’ve done, I thought… I wanted to help.”

I’m not sure if I imagine it, but his face softens just a little.

“I always think you forget about me, when we’re apart. I always have to find you, and then I’m never sure if you wanted to be found at all.” He looks into my eyes, and I’m sure it’s a warning. Of what, I could not say. Surely there is nothing lower than what I have done already? “Where should I stay until we leave?”

I breathe. “I’m staying in Deidamia’s home.”

“I meant myself. Where should I –”

“There’s no reason for us to be separated again. You should share my room.” I touch the small of his back. “I missed you. Patroclus, I missed you. I would have found you, if I had have – I would have found you eventually. You know that.”

He nods at the ground, which is more than I deserve.

* * *

“Pregnant.” Patroclus took a deep breath and looked between Deidamia and me. The world I had so meticulously built for us has imploded and he does not know where we are.

We are in the living room in my wife’s father’s house in Skyros.

“You can’t lie about this,” I warn. Unconsciously, I step towards her and she moves backward, toothpick arms folded across her flat chest. She isn’t showing, she’s barely pregnant – _if_ she’s pregnant. It is less a baby than a tumour, a disease.

“I’m not lying. I’m pregnant. I’m your wife, and I’m pregnant.” She smiles blandly. She is performing – in her mind this is the passage wherein I, dressed in black and feathers, spurn her, the love stricken young maiden. “You should be glad.”

“Glad?” I ask. She’s so small – a baby still herself.

“Aren’t you?”

I look at Patroclus, who stares at something invisible, his breathing uneasy. “We can get rid of it,” I decide.

Her face falls, but she holds her ground. “I told your mother. She will help me, even if you will not.”

“This doesn’t have to be a problem. It’s only been a couple of weeks…” I look at Patroclus, for he is moving, leaving the room in a daze. Leaving me in the ashes of our utopia. I turn to Deidamia and lower my voice. “I don’t love you. I will never love you,” I snarl. There are tears in her eyes, but I find I don’t care. More than that, I think I hate her. “Get rid of it.”

* * *

He isn’t crying. He is on the ground, still. He is thinking.

“I didn’t know,” I murmur. His pulse isn’t right. He forgets to breathe for the longest time, only to take the smallest sip of air.

“What do I do?” he asks. His fingers shake. He is trying not to cry. I don’t want him to cry. “Do I – do I forgive you? Is there anything to forgive? What’s reasonable? What’s a good way for me to react, I can’t think, I…” He bows his head into his knees. He makes himself small as he scrunches his eyes shut, begging some higher power to tell him what is right to feel. “But you’re upset too, and I know this was all just an accident, so I shouldn’t be…” One breath. Another. “You must be afraid.”

“I don’t want it. I never even thought…”

“I know.”

“I still want to leave this place with you.” I try to rebuild our world. “Whatever else, I want to leave with you. Would you still come?” I ask.

He is silent.

“If you didn’t, I’d still support you,” I say softly. “With school and living and – and everything. Anything.”

He laughs at me. “I’m so dumb for loving you. You’re always just gonna say the right things, and I’m never gonna be able to leave you.”

I shiver and let that sink in. “You don’t have to forgive me.”

He didn’t ask a higher power. He asked me.

“Any sane person would… what would it take, if not this?” he asks. He flexes his fingers, but they won’t stop shaking. He’s ashamed of himself.

“You should,” I choke. I feel the tears sting my eyes, the pain in my throat. I had forgotten how it hurt to cry. I slide down the wall till I am beside him on the floor. “But please don’t.”

He clutches his head, fingers tugging at the roots of his hair. He is beneath the tide and screaming. When it stops – when he lowers his hands and looks up – he is haunted.

“Give me tonight,” he says with a note of finality. “Just tonight. You know I’ll come back to you, I just need…” He shrugs, standing up. “Just tonight I need…”

And he is gone.

* * *

I do not leave my room. I can’t. I can’t look at Deidamia or my mother, I can’t face Lycomedes. I want to hurt. Everyone else and myself. I want to break things, but all I can do is wait for him to return and smooth it over.

* * *

It is morning when I sit up in bed as he enters my room. He has not slept either – he looks sick, almost. He is trapped in his mind and he can’t get out and I do not know if I am his jailer or saviour or both. Neither of us speak.

_It is broken. I can’t fix it, he’s here to tell me he’s leaving._

I am scared.

He does not leave, however. He looks at me for the longest time. There aren’t words. He can’t give me words yet, but that’s okay. He’s looking at me, and he takes off his shirt, then his jeans and I shiver because maybe I can make it okay again.

He comes to the bed and sits, takes my hand. He pulls gently at it and I kiss him – quickly and desperately. He pulls away, looks at me. He isn’t sure, maybe. He isn’t sure, but I have to make him sure, so I kiss him again, cupping the side of his face. I push him down until he is beneath me and claim the line of his jaw and the flesh of his neck with my teeth. When he touches my face, I feel something flip in my stomach. Anything. I would do anything, Patroclus.

He takes my hand and places it on his neck. At first I do not understand, and reach for his hardening cock waiting for me beneath the fabric of his boxer briefs. He shakes his head just slightly and guides my hand back to his throat, squeezing it just so – his fingers on mine. He looks right at me, from under me, and I’m painfully aware of what I could do to him if I lost control, but it isn’t dread in the pit of my stomach. It is arousal and need and I can fix things, I can make it better, I can keep him, have him.

He slides his hand beneath his waistband and touches himself. I can feel his every heartbeat, every breath through his throat.

I can make things okay again.

I press down gently, then a little more. His cheeks flush red, and I let him go. Just a few seconds each time, but soon his is making noises – no words, I can’t have words yet – but he gasps and groans and I’m making things better. I release his neck once more and he cries out and spills. I kiss him again – everywhere I can. I want him to know I’m sorry, I need him to forgive me.

When he catches his breath, he crawls down the bed until he can pounce on my waiting cock with his mouth. I settle my fingers into the mess of his hair and hold him there, firm but careful. I warn him, but he swallows anyway.

You could leave, but please don’t. Don’t leave me to this.

He lays his head down on the pillow and stares at the ceiling. I turn to face him, and I think I might have to prove myself again. I place my hand on his shoulder – _Anything, Patroclus_. I wait for his rejection, his desire. He looks at the place where we are connected and covers my hand with his.

“Okay,” he whispers and I am washed up on the shore, dazed and uncertain, but the waves have spat me out and I can breathe again.


	18. Loves and Marriages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Finally, a new chapter has rolled in. It is a long one, which is unusual for me. It's all a bit disjointed and flip-floppy, but so is this fic.
> 
> Habitually, I keep writing weird sex scenes for this fic and then being all like, let's not, try to keep it classy. I wrote one for this chapter and almost canned it, but I didn't, so make of it what you will. Hence has come a rating change and some more intricate tagging

Little explanation is given for Patroclus in the days that follow. I don’t know if mother does it for me – tells everyone, that is. I am not present when Deidamia tells her father about it – the baby, our marriage, Patroclus. The next time he sees me he freezes, makes to speak, walks away.

I remember how Mother gave him a large sum to donate to the church, and I’m sure it has bought his silence. Him and I – clutching at money the both of us.

He invites Patroclus down to dinner one day. Patroclus tiptoes around them, silent and careful and painfully aware that he is unwanted by all but myself. In a daze, he accepts.

When we are alone, there is a sadness in him that wasn’t before. He looks at me differently. Still with love, always with kindness – but there is uncertainty there, and I think it has settled to stay. I touch him whenever I can, like a reminder – that we are each other’s. He is mine, and I will care for him and love him as long as he lets me.

“I wish she would get rid of it,” I assure him too often. I wish it helped, but his shoulders just sag.

“It is what it is.”

We go to dinner.

* * *

The lamb is too dry, the vegetables too soft, and the atmosphere charged. I had hoped Lycomedes had a plan. Increasingly, I am sure the dinner was meant only to serve as a battleground.

“He is not beautiful,” snarls Deidamia. “He is not rich, he is not charming – he is nothing!” She crosses her arms, eyes flicking between me and Patroclus. She eventually settles on him as she murmurs, “ _This_ is an embarrassment.”

He doesn’t look up from his food and keeps eating in spite of looking ill.

“He is nothing?” I laugh. It sounds off even to me. “ _He’s_ nothing? And what does that make you, wifey? Are you my whole world?”

I can hear her blood rushing to her cheeks – I can taste her rage.

“My father is the leader of a community founded upon morality and faith. I am a ballerina – one of the best, you know I am one of the best. And I’m – _I’m_ pretty. Your mother chose well – I am good for you. I’m what someone like you needs.” She is flustered – I can hear it in every breath, smell it in her perspiration through the sweetness of her perfume.

“My mother chose you. You chose to marry me, you chose to keep it. I choose Patroclus. Every time, without hesitation, I choose Patroclus, and wherever I go, it will be Patroclus by my side and not you or your father. We could put this all behind us if you would only…” I do not need to finish the sentence; at the very mention of it, she crosses her arms over her stomach defensively. She is not even showing.

“How could you even suggest it? At this table, to me?” she asks, horrified. Looking at her father, I think he is trying to convince himself to be equally as horrified at the idea. I think he would be done with it just as soon as I.

“My mother has done this to us. We can undo it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“What do you get out of this? I don’t think you desperately want a child – we’re too young. Having children can be a deal breaker in your profession. And if you think you get me out of all this, then my mother has been very cruel, and you are deluded. No doubt you know about my nature.” She shakes her head and I laugh again. I think Lycomedes will come to her aid. It is not he.

“Have you taken his name, Deidamia?” asks Patroclus. His voice has the slightest quiver about it. “Mrs Pelides?”

“We are married. Truly.” Her voice is a ghost.

Patroclus nods dutifully. “In the church?” She shakes her head. “Were there many people?”

He has asked me these questions already, and I told him everything – it had not felt like a wedding, even, just a contract in words and touches.

“No,” she whispers. “Just Achilles, his mother and someone to – to make it official.”

“Not your father?”

“No. It was a secret.”

“That’s terrible. I think you deserve a better wedding – even if it is a secret wedding. I think there are certain demands you can make.”

“You – _you_ think there are – ” she sputters.

I am not at all sure where this is leading.

“Yes. I think you deserve to have Achilles’s father come down, at least. And I bet you have a few girlfriends who would wish to be bridesmaids. Close friends and family. A dress. You were probably so rushed that you didn’t get to go shopping for a wedding dress. I used to like looking at pictures of my mother in her wedding dress. I think your child would wish for the same. Thetis rushed things.” I try to catch his eye, but he won’t look at me. “I think Achilles’s family would pay for it; more than that, you should be promised a monthly allowance for you and the baby. I understand why this might be a secret, but I think it might as well be a poorly kept one. It could…” He falters. “I think it could be a happy marriage, even being what it is.”

“What do you get from this?” she asks suspiciously. Rightly so – I cannot follow Patroclus.

“It could be a good exchange. You know of Achilles’s ‘nature’, and you know that is something we don’t want made public.” He shrugs. “Being rumoured to have married and had a child with a beautiful woman will aid Achilles in that. And you, of course, have a bargaining chip. You know something we want not to be known. If he turns his back on you, you can always detail _exactly_ Achilles’s ‘nature’ to the nearest tabloid.” He looks down as he speaks. His voice is strong, but sitting beside him as I am, I can see him rub his palms against his slacks beneath the table.

“They would never believe me.” Deidamia flicks a stray hair out of her eyes and regards Patroclus carefully. “Not a chance. If he will be even a fraction of what his mother said he would be, no one will want to believe me, and it would be only my word.”

“I will lay down assurances. My own word – should Achilles betray you, that is.” I cannot immediately feel angry with Patroclus – not through the waves of confusion. “So do you agree? That a wedding is in order?”

“Yes.” The voice is that of the aged Lycomedes. “Yes, I think that’s what we need.”

 

* * *

 

“What was that?” I hiss.

He looks at me for a long time. He leans against the post of the guest bed, arms folded. I imagine his uncertainty as a heavy mist. It is fine, when he lets me take his hand and guide him as I please, but when he lets go to look about – survey the scene, recalibrate – he can’t reconcile everything that is and isn’t and can and can’t. It is foreign and strange to him, just as my father’s house had seemed unfamiliar and daunting when I found him in the cupboard years ago. If he were to find his own way through the mist, he would find a thousand paths that led to places that were not me. “You asked her to kill it.”

“Pat, you’re not seriously one of those –”

“No, I’m not. But she is – she was raised differently and in her eyes it’s murder. Imagine being her and your husband suggests you cast off your troubles by committing the ultimate sin. Imagine being her at all – Christ, Achilles.” The odd thing is that he isn’t mad – not really. He takes deep breaths; this is what it looks like when someone loves you even when you are wrong.

“You gave her the power to out me.”

“ _We_ gave that to her the moment I walked in. Now she knows she wields a dangerous weapon – if anything, that ought to make her think twice before using it.”

“Would you support her against me?”

He is silent, thinking. I cannot stand it. In Phthia, on Mount Pelion, there had been little to disagree about. We lived as children live and now we are in freefall.

“Patroclus. Would you support _her_ against _me_?”

“If you were to turn your back on your own child –”

“I’m nineteen, I never asked for –”

“Do you care that much about money?!” he shouts and I am stunned to silence. It can’t be easy, anymore. Not with all that has happened, and I must not forget that. “Your family has enough for one kid, and that’s on top of all the money you’ll be making when you become a mercenary –”

“A hero.”

His lip twitches – we approach rocky terrain. He swerves. “A hero, then. But it isn’t the money.”

“No. It’s pride, Patroclus. Mother took me from you, she lied to me and we could make it all go away if only Deidamia would just –” I stop. It congests my throat – the realisation. He moves as I brush past him and sit on the bed. Without a word, he sits beside me. “She chose a fucking pastor's daughter.” I feel his hand on the small of my back. “She didn’t just choose Deidamia because she would be good for my image; she chose her because she would keep the child. It is not Deidamia who has trapped me.” I swallow and just a moment ago he yelled at me and now Patroclus’s lips tickle my neck. “It was Mother.”

“You aren’t trapped, Achilles,” he whispers against my jaw. “Never trapped, my Anakin.”

I feel the rage and pride melt away. “No. I’m not.” It is a spell; I say it so that Patroclus might believe me and make it true.

“Your mother loves you.” A kiss on the crown of my head. “I love you.” One lands on the corner of my lips before he pulls away to look at me. “But Deidamia loves you too.”

I grab his hands in mine. “I can’t love her. You wouldn’t have me love her.”

“No. But before we sleep, you will tell me what you are going to do about your wife and child.”

It sounds absurd. Those words from his mouth as we sit in the guest room of Deidamia’s family home. He should be furious at me and Deidamia and Mother and the mess we have made, but instead he tries to fix it. There is unhappiness in the lines of his face, but he surrenders a small, lopsided smile. I am grateful for it.

“I will marry her again in a proper ceremony so we can have pictures. If not to leak to the press should we… should we need to, then so our kid can see it.”

“That’s good, ‘Chilles,” he murmurs. He is tired. I don’t blame him. I lie back and place his head upon my chest. We will be okay.

“And money – I’ll tell Father everything. He’ll give me anything I ask for in this.”

“Mmm,” he mumbles. I stroke his hair.

“And when it’s born, I’ll offer Deidamia whatever she needs to regain her career.” Something eats away at me still. “Pat, I’m not gonna be a good dad. I’m not gonna be around – I don’t want to be around. I have a whole life I haven’t gotten to live yet. Mother wants to take care of it and I think Deidamia will let her have it. I’m going to be the worst dad.”

He sighs, and I can’t help but wonder how long he had been holding that single breath. “My dad wasn’t too great and I reckon I’d’ve been better off if he just wasn’t around. I wasn’t the kid he wanted and he made that pretty clear. Even when he didn’t say so, you could hear it in his voice, read it in his gestures – he wanted a kid like you.”

“What an idiot.”

He smiles a little, eyes just barely open. “It’s a bad situation. You haven’t abandoned her or the baby, and that’s as good as I could have asked.”

I have felt myself unravel today, and I am grateful to have been carefully put back together.

* * *

 

We have a ceremony – a proper one, albeit small. My father attends, but Mother does not. Since I have only Patroclus, he stands behind me as Best Man, and a short blonde girl who could only be a fellow dancer stands behind Deidamia. I know Patroclus had offered Deidamia to sit among the guests – it must be difficult for Deidamia to look up in the middle of her sham of a wedding and see the man who keeps my heart standing behind me. But she has reason to be grateful to Patroclus, and through gritted teeth, she let him remain in my party.

She is beautiful – truly. I should feel more for her than I do; in her wedding dress, she is the most beautiful girl I have seen in my life, and she carries my child. Still, I take my cues from Patroclus when it comes to her.

 _Tell her she looks beautiful, Achilles,_ he urged. _Stop trying to avoid touching her; hold her hand, put your hand on her back – it won’t kill you._

I think to snap at him; he doesn’t know what it’s like to be forced to marry someone you don’t love and watch them bear your child. But then, I do not know the pain of being kept a terrible secret and watching the person I adore say their vows to someone else. If the roles were reversed, I do not think I could stand behind Patroclus and smile as he married a pretty girl.

We seal our contract with a kiss, and the small party of guests beam.

A thousand pictures are taken that day, and Patroclus tries to stay as far away from me as is acceptable for a Best Man to be. Still, once he has had some wine – his first sips, I think absently – he stops avoiding me and we are able to take a few pictures together.

* * *

 

He is flushed and drunk I think. He smiles a lot, and I like that. Unsurprisingly, the wine does nothing to me. I think maybe I might never feel as light and easy as Patroclus does now, but there’s a pleasure in watching him.

“When will we leave?” he asks, taking my hand. I checked us into a hotel. It seemed strange to return to Deidamia’s home and not fuck her after our ceremony.

“Soon,” I promise.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Right. Where?”

I pause. “Somewhere nice. Somewhere you’ll like. Just us.”

Not Mother or Father or Chiron or Deidamia. No one who doubts me.

“Okay.” He smiles and I can’t help but shake my head as he starts to strip out of his suit.

“Pat…”

“Wedding night sex,” he announces. “Not every day you get married, Achilles.”

“We should hope not,” I agree.

“I’m a bit jealous,” he admits. “Everyone seemed so happy.”

“Except me,” I mutter. “And you. And probably Deidamia.”

“I know. But it was nice, in its own sort of way.” He climbs in beneath the covers and sighs contentedly. “It’s nice.”

“I’ll be back soon, Pat. I’m gonna sort some things out with my father.”

“But we were gonna consummate your marriage,” he slurs.

“If you’re still awake when I return, we’ll consummate it twice.” I pat his shoulder and he sighs – his eyelids are already straining to support themselves. “I love you, Patroclus.”

“You too,” he mumbles into the pillow. When I return he is sound asleep, and I feel lighter. For the first time since Patroclus found me in the studio, I think maybe things can be as they were.

* * *

 

As we await our next step – deciding what I will do as a ‘hero’ if I do not rush off with Odysseus and Diomedes – we rent an apartment in a tall building that overlooks the city, hours away from anywhere we’ve ever lived. It is meant to be alive, full of lives being lived, but I feel as though I never see any people; just buildings and cars and trains and ants.

We pass the days slowly, as it had been when I returned to Father’s estate from Chiron’s training. Still I train, but the hours of the day seem to elongate. We walk the city, sometimes. Patroclus mentions things in passing that will never eventuate – that he might want a dog, that rugby looks like a lot of fun, that we should make friends.

We fuck.

It becomes my favourite thing to do, in that first week. Ironically, it _is_ like a honeymoon. At Chiron’s, at Father’s, staying with Deidamia – there had always been the fear of having to explain ourselves. We can play anytime we like, now, and it is often.

“I’m giving you a safe word,” I murmur, tightening the tie. He looks at me incredulously.

“No way.”

“Just ‘red’ should work. If you need me to stop, just say ‘red’.” I tighten the tie on his other hand, but I can feel him shake his head.

“No.”

“We can’t dance around it forever, Pat.”

“But we’re just…”

“Normal?” I find a second pillow and slip it under Patroclus’s back. “I choked you in Skyros. Which I liked, but the rational part of my brain – which gets dangerously quiet when we’re at it – is telling me that things could’ve gone _badly_. If I’m tying you up, you get a safe word. If I’m hurting you or upsetting you, you’ve got to use it.” I lean back and admire my handywork. Fully dressed, I look down at his bareness and smile. I haven’t bound his feet, so his legs lie flat and together on the bed. “You look like Christ on the cross,” I muse, grabbing his ankles and moving them so his legs are bent and spread and I can see him better. “We’ve gotta get you hard.”

He’s turned red from embarrassment, but the bonds on his hands keep him from concealing his face.

“You remember the word? If you need to –”

“No. It’s – I… I don’t need to use it,” he breathes.

I stroke up and down his shin, but make no move to touch his cock. “What do you think about when you jerk off?”

Something in me loves the little noise of surprise he makes.

“Haven’t had much need, lately,” he replies.

“But when you do,” I press. “Do you think about me?”

“Mostly.”

I feel a rush of arousal. “ _Mostly_? Who else? What else?”

He smiles teasingly. “Strangers.”

His cock is hardening.

“Is that right? You want strangers to fuck you?”

“You bring me strangers, you tell me they’re going to warm me up, that you’re gonna watch.”

I feel a predator’s smile stretch across my cheeks. “Yeah?”

“Sometimes.”

He’s completely hard. I remove my shirt.

“What do you want now? What do you want me to do?” I’m teasing him, but I’m not sure how much more I can stand myself. _Strangers._

“Fuck me,” he mumbles. I purse my lips. “Achilles, please…”

“How?” I ask.

“With your big dick,” he says, rolling his eyes, and I can’t help but laugh. “Between my legs.”

“Maybe.” I shrug, and remove my trousers. Sometimes I find it funny, when I’m in control like this, to remember that night at Deidamia’s when I had been so unsure. It crosses my mind that if he said ‘red’ and I untied him, he would leave with my whole world. I need something stronger than strips of fabric to hold him to me.

I make my way onto the bed and crawl between his knees. If I were better at this, maybe I wouldn’t kiss him at all, or I’d make him earn it. But I can’t help myself. I lean into him and close my eyes and it’s warm and long and pleasant – like exhaling after reading the final sentence of a long book. I hear his arms strain against the bonds. I cup his face in both hands and kiss him all over his face and neck, before tilting him up so he sits a little straighter.

“You’re gonna fuck me,” I whisper, and his eyes fly open.

“No.”

“You have a word. You wanna use it?” I ask. Slowly, he shakes his head and I remove my underwear and slick up my fingers to prepare myself, rolling over so I’m beside him. I take the first finger, then the second. “Hmm. How do you take me, Pat? So much.”

His breathing is beginning to strain. “Please, Achilles.”

I squeeze in a third, but barely. I pull them out, and begin lubing up Patroclus, before straddling him. Again I feel his arms try to find their way around my waist to clutch at my back, but to no avail.

I begin to lower myself down on him, and it hurts. It stretches and it shows on my face.

“Achilles…” he whispers gently, but he wants it. I keep lowering myself down until I’ve taken all of him and kiss him. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. I use my knees as a lever and begin to fuck myself on his cock.

It feels good after a while. More than the physical sensation, however, is watching Patroclus gasp beneath me, body tense and straining and powerless, his hips managing just small thrusts to meet mine. It’s minutes or hours – I can hardly tell – before I see him losing it.

“You wanna come?” I manage.

He opens his eyes. It’s all he can do to nod.

“Ask me.”

“Can I…” I snap my hips down hard and he loses his thought.

“What, Patroclus?”

He blinks, mouth open. “Can I come?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, I want you to say my name, Pat. Say it.”

“Achilles,” he gasps.

“More,” I growl.

A few more thrusts and he’s gone. He strains fiercely against the restraints, and I feel him spill in me as I pump it out of him.

“Achilles…” Half a sigh, half a moan.

It doesn’t take me long, after that.

* * *

 

When I re-enter the room after grabbing a cloth, I realise my mistake and cannot stop laughing.

He pulls uselessly at the restraints and rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Achilles.”

I try to stifle my laughter. “Shit, I’m sorry, Pat.” I put the cloth down on the bedside table and make quick work of the bounds. His wrists will bruise. His thighs too, from where I held him too tight. He looks himself over, flexes his fingers and makes for the cloth. I snap it up first. “I’ve got you, Pat.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs self-consciously. “For that. Would’ve been the third time today, otherwise. I’m a bit sore.”

“I know. I played with myself a bit in the shower. Figured it was about time.” He’s fucked me before, of course, but it is a rarity. The last time was at Chiron’s. “You like it?”

“Yeah. As a change. Don’t get a taste for it, though,” he says sheepishly.

“No,” I agree. “And these.” I pick up one of the ties. “Did you like that?”

He nods hesitantly, but doesn’t look at me. He isn’t comfortable talking about it.

“I liked it too,” I say softly. He thinks he’s a freak. He’s been conditioned to think he’s a freak since birth. I’ve been conditioned to believe I’m a god.

He looks at me warily, before nodding to himself. “Yeah.”

I feel a smile break out on my face. I turn onto my side, and I must look like a wolf, for he immediately looks at me with dread. “ _Strangers_ , Patroclus?”

He’s mortified, of course. “Fuck.”

“Strangers. Really?”

“Sometimes.”

I grapple with that. I can’t stop grinning. “Shit, Pat.”

“As if you haven’t,” he grumbles. “Imagined things like that to get off, I mean.”

“Things like that…” I hum. I’m enjoying it too much, but Patroclus is smiling too now. “Ever anyone we know?” I ask.

“Achilles…”

“Chiron?” I ask. When he doesn’t respond, I feel an ancient pang of jealousy turned arousal. “If you’re not careful, I might end up trying for that third time.”

But I imagine it – Chiron with his bulk. Chiron with his limitless stream of knowledge and empathy and kindness, with my Patroclus. I remember imagining it at seventeen and eighteen in my frustration, before I made him mine. Now when I imagine it, I am grown but still just ‘Pelides’ to Chiron. I’m feral, and Chiron knows it. Not a god but an animal, watching them –

“No one else,” I murmur. I find myself on top of him, and he startles, before laughing at me. In mimicry, I think, my face smiles back, but it doesn’t feel right. “Never anyone else, Patroclus.”

As I kiss his smile, I am assured by the knowledge that gold might be strong enough to hold him.

* * *

 

I take him to see the beach. The beach I choose is a few hours away and nestled into the outer suburbs. We find a spot that is private enough that when I indulge myself a little as I lather sun screen on Patroclus, I do not fear invasive eyes. He cannot stop smiling and, as though I think it will trap his smiles, I cannot stop kissing him.

“I’ve never been to the beach,” he says, looking out into the endless expanse of ocean.

“I know,” I reply, a little proud of myself. I remember Skyros, the ocean so much a part of the soundscape of the town – always audible, always visible. But Patroclus had not been there for the sun and the sea. “You told me, once.”

He beams at me and jumps up off the towel he was sitting on. “Let’s swim.”

We do for a long while. Mostly he wades through the water, delighting in the feel of the sun against his skin and the soothing effect of the sea. I show off a little – I’ll duck beneath the waves and swim a long distance before coming up for air minutes later.

“You looked worried,” I laugh when I return.

“For a second, I was. But then I remembered that it’s you. There could be a shark down there, and I’d be better off worrying about the shark.” He shivers a little, and I find my gaze drawn to the sky; it grows a dull, warm orange colour.

“Come out of the water with me,” I say. Faintly, I can hear the sound of children’s laughter in the distance, but it is soft enough that it largely fades away. What I hear is Patroclus’s breath and heart and the endless rolling of waves as they charge at the shore. “Let’s sit up there.”

I gesture to a pier made of rocks which must extend fifty metres into the water. He nods and grins a moment, before pulling me into a tight hug as though he cannot help it. “Thank you,” he whispers as I breathe him in. “For taking me here, thank you.”

We walk in silence across the rocks, hand in hand till we reach the end and sit down. He doesn’t let go of my hand and I don’t stop smiling.

“I had a reservation booked,” I murmur.

“Oh?” he asks vaguely, entranced by the sea.

“We’ll miss it,” I reply, shrugging. He makes to get up, but I don’t let him. “We _are_ missing it. It’s okay; I hoped this would happen. I’m happy.”

He smiles and turns to me. “Me too,” he whispers, and squeezes my hand, and I think my heart stumbled like a newborn giraffe finding its legs.

“With Deidamia and Mother and the child… I wish it were just you, most of the time. The entire world could be empty and I could have you, and I don’t think I would need any more than that.”

His cheeks flush and he can’t look at me; instead he opts to play with my hand and fingers. He places our palms together and frowns.

“Have your hands grown?” he asks, frowning.

My lips twitch. “No. Why?”

Against each other, our hands are similar in size, though my fingers outgrew his by a centimetre or so, and Patroclus’s fingers are the more slender.

He takes my hand. “You never wear your family ring on your pinky,” he says. “I thought maybe it mustn’t fit anymore.”

I slip the ring off my finger. I’m glad we missed our reservation. “I can’t marry you. But I’ve wanted to – I’ve imagined it before. I never imagine a future without you – you’re always there, with me. Because you are my heart, Patroclus.”

His mouth is slightly agape, and his big eyes appear all the larger. “Achilles…”

“I had Father order it to be made. He knows it’s for you. After the wedding I spoke to him – extensively. I had to give it all to him, right from the start because neither Chiron nor my mother said a word. I even told him I couldn’t like girls. He was a little bit disappointed, but I think that was partly to think that I was married to someone I could never love.” I swallow; I’m sick with excitement and fear. “I told him that I love you – that I want to love you always. I told him how you make me feel; like I could eat the world raw not because of my powers, but simply because I have you. And I can’t marry you,” I whisper. “This ring is a promise to you that you are my family – that we are bound together.”

I pass him the ring and he stares at it blankly. He finds the inscription engraved inside the band. “ _My Patroclus_ ,” he reads aloud. I begin to worry, but then a smile conquers his face. “Are you sure?” he asks. “That this is okay?”

“Please,” I find myself begging. “If – if you feel as I feel and want me as I want you…” I trail off and he laughs and slips the ring onto his finger without a word. I release a long breath I hadn’t realised was inside of me.

“I’ll never be able to wear it; the Pelides insignia is too recognisable.” I take his hand and examine the way the ring sits on his finger; it is gold and heavy with a thick band. I take my own ring from the pocket of my swim trunks and slip it onto the ring finger of my right hand – weighing down my left is the simple band that shackles me to Deidamia. “Yes, Achilles, to…” He trails off and laughs. “To this,” he whispers.

I pull him close to me and crush our lips together. He crawls up onto his knees and straddles my lap and I find myself resting my forehead against his throat and tears form in my eyes. He holds me close and strokes my hair.

“Chiron said I should not love, once. That love could ruin me. That’s why when we were younger, he wished you might leave before it was too late.”

“It was already too late – before we were at Mount Pelion, it was already too late for me.”

“I’m being selfish, Pat,” I whisper, my voice raw. “Because I know he was right, maybe. I would be so weak without you. You make me who I am – without you I would be someone else. So I ask for forever, because I cannot ask for nothing or never.”

“I won’t leave, Achilles.”

I can’t say how I look at him, then. Is there a way to look at someone when their words have moved the world sideways?

“I promise, Achilles. I won’t leave you,” he whispers

And I believe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you! Please comment. Reading comments gives me life.


	19. Sentencing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I killed a boy, when I was fifteen.”
> 
> “I know. You told me,” I say carefully. He nods.
> 
> “And then I went to live with you,” he says, staring at his hands.
> 
> I swallow hard. “I know. What is it, Pat?” I beg.
> 
> “That isn’t what happens to murderers."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Sorry for the delays. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Our happiness carries us through the next few weeks. I take him everywhere I can think of and love him each night. Sometimes we play, but other times it is careful, exciting for the restraint it demands.

He wears the ring, each night. I bring his fingers to my lips and kiss the band of gold.

“Mine,” I tell him each time.

* * *

I am in the elevator, when I hear it. I chose a building with thick walls, but still I hear the other occupants as I am hauled up the shaft. I do not notice until the elevator comes to a stop; he isn’t crying, quite – in the same way he didn’t cry when Deidamia told him she was pregnant. That I do not rip the door off the hinge is an achievement. When I enter the apartment, the ring is sitting in front of him on the coffee table, and he is deathly still and something is very wrong.

“What happened?” I ask. He does not look at me – just straight ahead. He is watching it burn.

“Your father called me. Your mother will phone you too, I think,” he says, his voice too soft. “I never thought of it,” he murmurs, in a daze. “I never forgot, but I… I should have thought.”

I sit as close as I can beside him on the couch. “Tell me. Can I fix it?”

He shakes his head.

“Tell me. I will.”

Warily, he turns to look at me. “I killed a boy, when I was fifteen.”

“I know. You told me,” I say carefully. He nods.

“And then I went to live with you,” he says, staring at his hands.

I swallow hard. “I know. What is it, Pat?” I beg.

“That isn’t what happens to murderers. They don’t – they don’t just get sent to the country. They get locked up, Achilles.” He takes a few breaths and looks at the floor. “What I did – it was covered up. Your father called,” he repeats, “to tell me that they are uncovering it.”

I don’t understand, but I do – I know exactly, but I need to hear it. “Uncovering?”

He makes to touch me – place a hand on my knee, I think – but he retracts it. “I was fifteen. I told my parents, and I told his parents what I’d done. Dad fixed it up. He cut a lopsided business deal with the boy’s dad, gave a lump sum to your family, and it was swept under the rug. The family wants to press charges.”

“It’s been years,” I say flatly. “Five years, and _now_ they want to press charges? It – it was an accident.”

“The boy – his father’s business went under. They’re being paid to… they’re being paid off to open it up again.” He shakes his head and breathes deeply.

I can’t stand it. “If it’s just money – I have money, Patroclus. Surely Father offered to help. What did he say?”

He shakes his head.

“You can’t match them. I think it’s Odysseus, Achilles,” he says. “The family offered to sign a contract to drop it if I enlist.”

“If _you_ enlist,” I echo. I remember watching the way Odysseus had looked at Patroclus with such peculiar interest.

“I know what their angle is,” he says. “I don’t want you to even consider it.”

“Well, what’s your plan?” I ask, my eyes drawn once again to the ring on the table.

He shrugs. “I should just accept the charges. I was a juvenile at the time. It won’t be so bad.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“No. I don’t want it all dragged up again. I don’t want you caught up in it.”

“They will kill you, if I send you alone to enlist,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “You’ll be deployed and they’ll get you killed to teach me a lesson.”

He nods, at that. “Maybe. I should face the charges, I suppose? We can’t give them what they want, Achilles. You know that. You asked what your father said, and that was it. He said it was all a shame, and to not give in –”

“A shame,” I bite. “If they took you, I could never forgive them.” _Them._ Everyone. “You took the ring off.” I can’t keep myself from staring at it. “Even after what you said.”

“Whatever I end up choosing, you can’t –”

“You promised you’d never leave me,” I say with an edge. “Did you mean that?”

“Yes. Yes, but I can’t be the reason – I won’t be. I won’t ruin everything.” He holds my gaze and I want to look away. “Think about it, Achilles. Really think. This is bigger than –”

“Put it back on,” I say dangerously. I’ve never felt such anger. He shakes his head helplessly. I snap up the ring and his hand and force it on his finger. “Mine,” I bite. I press it to my lips. “You’re mine. Aren’t you?”

“They’re blackmailing you, disrespecting you.”

“You said –”

“I wouldn’t embarrass you.” He swallows, eyes red. “I promised I’d never embarrass you. Before almost anything else.”

I try for deep breaths, and eventually manage them. “I need to ally myself with the military anyway. It’s not like I was never going to get back to Odysseus and his offer. I just wanted time. We got months rather than years. There are worse things.”

“The charges might not even stick.”

“I don’t know how dirty they’re willing to play.” I remind myself that it is not Patroclus I’m mad at – not truly. I place my hand on his knee and squeeze. “I can swing it so we won’t ever be separated by them. I’ll still be a hero, you’ll still be a nurse. My nurse. You trust me?”

“Wait for your mother to call,” he begs.

“My mother,” I murmur, “has done more than enough of late, I think.”

* * *

“Odysseus? Achilles Pelides. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you why I’m calling.”

I hear a soft, friendly laugh in response, as though we have shared a joke. “Achilles. I think I’d rather you explained the situation, as you understood it.”

I feel myself smile, a baring of teeth. “Clysonymus’s family – with their deteriorating business – are gearing up for a legal battle with a good friend of mine. Somehow, they’re putting together enough for a lawyer, and they’re not taking bribes. But if my friend signs on for six years, they’ll scrap the whole thing.”

“Now you’ve said it, it sounds familiar after all. Patroclus, was it? A _very_ good friend, the way I understand it.” I can hear his politician’s smile even over the phone. “Tutored by your side, there when you married your pregnant girlfriend – and that order for a family ring placed last month. I suppose he deserved it, after everything.”

I let that sink in. He is trying to throw me off balance.

“You know I’m calling to broker a deal.”

“Are you?” asks Odysseus.

“You want me.” I have studied war and battle. With the same certainty as I know I would be good at it, I am sure it would ruin Patroclus. “You don’t want him; you want me. I have terms.”

“Well of course.”

“I will be ranked and trained as a General – immediately,” I say flatly. “All other Immortals remain under the radar – if I am to emerge, the missions and tasks set are to be ethically sound and with good PR. I’ll accept the six year contract in Patroclus’s place. Patroclus will join me – ranked as a Lieutenant nursing officer. He requires training, which he will receive. He will answer to me, no minimum period of service. The pay –”

“Will be phenomenal. Haven’t you heard how much defence spends on weapons?” says Odysseus cheerfully, throwing in a low whistle. “I’m so glad you’ve come around, Pelides. Truly.”

* * *

Patroclus sits cross-legged on the floor, staring out the window at the cars and people below. He doesn’t turn when I sit beside him.

“I fixed it,” I say to the glass. I take his hand. His knuckle is red from when I put the ring back on too forcefully. “Sorry.”

“You should have given it some time.” I bring his hand into my lap, held in both of my hands. “We have time, Achilles. Six years in the army or a few years – or months – in prison… it wasn’t the end of the world.”

“I still have everything I want. I have you, and I’ll be fighting, now. For something. We won’t be bored, so much.”

“Your mother – ”

“Doesn’t get a say. Not about you.”

“I can’t do anything for myself,” he says, though it is little more than a statement of fact. I’ve sucked him into my world, and he is a guest, a tourist always asking permission. I’ve made him dependent upon me for all things.

“I’m sorry.” But I’m not. Sorry. ‘Sorry’ is so difficult to define. It’s a pity, I think, that Patroclus feels restricted. It’s a pity – a shame, unfortunate – that he is limited. If that is how ‘sorry’ works, then I am, and that’s what I mean, when I say it to him. But I think to be properly, fully sorry, one has to have a genuine repentance; the desire and will not just to remedy the situation, but even unpick their part in it. I fixed things today, but I would not undo anything that led to this predicament; not our love, not keeping him on Mount Pelion, not even Patroclus killing Clysonymus.

“You should have just waited,” he insists weakly.

“I felt like a hero, though,” I admit, grinning and he sighs. I press my forehead into the cool of the glass. “For the first time. Almost like I did something good and selfless, but not, because I did it for me.” So I wouldn’t have to miss him. So I wouldn’t have to rip Odysseus vertically in half with my hands.

“This will change things.”

I feel my heart plummet. “Like?”

Patroclus smiles just a little. “We’ll need haircuts.” He tugs at one of his loose curls.

I grin, and I feel some of the tension slip away. “You would have been at their mercy, if I handed you over,” I murmur to the ants on the streets below. “In prison or in the army. They would have kept me in line by telling me what they’d do to you if I didn’t play by their rules. Would’ve told me when and if I could see you.”

“Now you’re at their mercy.”

“I was either way, don’t you see?”

He frowns and carefully extracts the ring from his finger. I can see what’s running through his mind, and suppress my anger, clasping his hands once more. I hope it feels more loving than forceful.

“That wouldn’t solve anything. Forever, right? Chiron wanted me to have no one. Mother too. I’ve chosen you – always. Come on, Pat.” Gently, this time, I slip his ring back on. “I made a choice. I chose right, doesn’t mean I chose easy.”

“Alright,” he whispers.

Something in me turns. “That wouldn’t fix it, Pat,” I snap. “The damage is done.”

He tenses and it’s a long time before he releases his breath. “I just wish it wasn’t my fault.”

“Don’t ever leave me because of them. I can handle them – we can compromise and blackmail and twist and turn, and I can’t do that with you. You could leave. You could leave the ring on the table and go to prison, and if I heard anyone had touched you, I would kill all of them. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I wouldn’t want to stop myself. If they got you killed… If _I_ got you killed…” I remember Chiron asking what I would do, if I lost Patroclus. I remember the feeling. I feel it now. “I don’t know what I’d do. Nothing heroic.”

He nods. “Alright.”

It isn’t. He looks uneasy. Not afraid – uncomfortable, maybe. I try to rid my body of it – the frustration, the bitterness. I feel lighter when I turn to him. “Are we? Alright?”

“We aren’t in the forest anymore. They’re baiting us out, and if we don’t leave, they’ll burn it down.” He looks at me. I’m not sure what he sees, but it settles something and he stands up and stretches his shoulders, his back. For a fleeting moment, I picture him throwing himself against the glass to leave me.

“I got us out. Together.”

“Yes,” he agrees. He smiles and runs his hand through his hair. “Thank you.”

“It’s on me. This sort of thing. Everything with my mother or father or Odysseus or anyone else – it’s my job to handle it. It isn’t your fault, and all you have to do – all you have to do is tell me, and I’ll fix it.” He stares past me. “I knew –”

“I didn’t. I didn’t know they would do this. If you knew…”

“I knew they would do whatever it takes. Me too. People aren’t always playing for kicks, Pat. Odysseus and whoever’s behind him – they’re playing for keeps. They need me.” He’s horrified. He remembers the cruelty of man in his father. Patroclus’s father disgusts me, but his unkindness to Patroclus was that. Dislike. Odysseus and Diomedes – they do not hate me or Patroclus, but they need something, and Patroclus has not seen the ruthlessness of necessity.

I don’t sleep that night. I watch him – I see when his face pinches. Finally, he whimpers and I wake him. I knew it would come.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” he whispers to me, or his dad, or Clysonymus’s parents – I’m not sure. I will never forgive Odysseus this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Reading your comments makes my day, so I'd love to hear from you!


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